ICE Sets Its Sights on Massachusetts Immigrant Workers
This week, ICE snatched an immigrant seafood worker in Massachusetts at an employer whose workers have engaged in nationally celebrated collective action for years — the kind of collective action that, on a mass scale, would be a major threat to Trump.
A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent stands on a street during a targeted enforcement operation in Chicago, Illinois, on Sunday, January 26, 2025. (Christopher Dilts / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
On April 14, federal agents snatched seafood processing worker Juan Francisco Mendez from his vehicle in New Bedford, Massachusetts, breaking the rear window with a sledgehammer while he and his wife were sitting in the car, pleading with the agents to wait for their lawyer and showing them their asylum application paperwork.
“They didn’t wait for the lawyer to arrive here to be with us and broke the window,” said his wife Marilú Méndez, who recorded the incident on her cell phone. “We have the right to be here too. What they did was unfair.”
On the cell-phone video, Juan Francisco Mendez can be seen fidgeting with his fingers, telling the armed agents wearing green bulletproof vests that he can’t speak until his lawyer is present, that she’s on her way, and that he’ll comply. They ask the federal agents if they have a warrant. Husband and wife assure one another the agents won’t break down the window because they’re being recorded. Moments later, the camera shows shards of broken glass on the back seats.
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