Georgia immigrant communities `on heightened alert’ as ICE arrests increase

Recent weeks have brought increased immigration enforcement activity in Georgia and across the nation, according to reports from media outlets, witnesses and immigrant community advocates. Bystanders are taking and sharing video of immigration enforcement operations to document agents’ behavior and to inform fellow community members, according to AJC interviews with two witnesses of recent arrests.

Lily Pabian is the executive director of We Love Buford Highway, a nonprofit that provides services to and advocates for local immigrant communities. She said that, starting around early July, staff have been hearing about increased immigration operations and detentions impacting residents across the metro area.

“Everyone is on heightened alert. … This ramp-up is something that feels different,” she said. Impacted immigrants are “people that our staff knows. These are people that our sister agencies know. This is real and this is happening all over Atlanta.”

Telemundo Atlanta reported recently that immigration authorities were “intensifying” operations across the metro area, with a peak number of daily arrests coming July 9 and the bulk of apprehensions from Conyers, Norcross and Marietta. The outlet reports daily on ICE activity and arrests across the metro area by interviewing witnesses and reviewing tips and videos from immigrant community members.

Nationwide, immigration officials detained more than 10,000 people in a period of five days at the end of June, according to internal ICE documents obtained by The New York Times. That surge in enforcement activity roughly doubled the pace of daily arrests the agency had set earlier this year, according to the Times.

ICE did not respond to multiple inquiries from the AJC about the agency’s activities in Georgia.

According to Pabian, immigrants have been arrested during traffic stops, at gas stations and at construction worksites.

“The (work) crews are getting very slim,” she said.

According to reports from WSBTV and Telemundo, among the construction projects impacted was the site of Norcross’ new public safety building, where the city will house its police department and municipal court.

Telemundo interviewed contractor Miguel Pulido, who said three of his workers were detained when immigration agents arrived on the morning of July 21. According to Gwinnett County resident Linda Reyes, who spoke with WSBTV, her husband, Jose Perez — an unauthorized immigrant — was among those arrested at the city construction site.

Norcross Police Department Capt. Robert Braud told the AJC that city police were not involved in the arrests, though officers were present on the property. Braud said he believes ICE was behind the arrests.

ICE did not confirm or share details about enforcement operations in Norcross.

Norcross Mayor Craig Newton told the Gwinnett Daily Post earlier this week that local law enforcement has not been involved in immigration enforcement in the area.

Stops during `peak work commute hours’

In Georgia, where state law mandates close collaboration between local law enforcement and federal authorities, ICE officers have in the past teamed up with local police on traffic stops, allowing them to question and detain drivers and passengers following traffic infractions. But federal agents are also authorized to pull over vehicles on Georgia roadways on their own if they suspect an occupant is violating immigration or federal law.

Tagle said her husband was pulled over by immigration agents a short distance from the couple’s home.

The Marietta Police Department and the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office said they were not involved in operation.

ICE’s use of traffic stops was briefly paused following the July 7 shooting death of an immigrant in Texas and the July 13 shooting death of an immigrant in Maine. Both were in cars when federal agents opened fire. But ICE quickly reversed course at the urging of President Donald Trump, who described vehicle stops as “one of ICE’s most important and effective crime fighting tools” in a social media post.

The arrest of Pineda and his colleagues was captured on video by another Marietta resident and bystander, Amy Lunar.

Lunar’s video, filmed at around 6:45 a.m. on Franklin Gateway, near the intersection with South Marietta Parkway, shows workers’ white pickup truck stopped on the street with two unmarked vehicles with obscured license plates behind it and another in front of it.

Law enforcement agents are seen in the video wearing vests marked with the word ‘police,’ with one also donning a face covering. Georgia-based immigration attorneys Josh McCall and Adriana Heffley say those details are indicative of a federal immigration stop.

McCall added that ICE vehicle stops in the region have been occurring during “peak work commute hours,” typically early in the morning or between 5-7 p.m.

The AJC sent an ICE spokesperson the video and requests to comment on recent immigration enforcement activity in Marietta. The AJC also shared a July 7 livestream from a resident filming immigration agents conducting a vehicle stop in LaGrange, near the Alabama border, before being asked for proof of citizenship.

The spokesperson, Lindsay Williams, did not comment on ICE activity in either video. But he said it is advisable for people to avoid inserting themselves in a law enforcement action in which they are not involved.

“That applies to all law enforcement operations, immigration or otherwise. Following, harassing, interfering, threatening law enforcement puts everyone in danger,” he said.

Lunar, the bystander in Marietta, can be seen approaching the immigration agents and yelling insults as she filmed the apprehension of Pineda and his colleagues on the road.

Motivations for filming ICE

Alex Orellana, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Guatemala, has lived in LaGrange for nearly two decades. He said ICE activity in the city in the past was limited. The most common way for local residents without legal status to wind up in immigration custody was to get booked into the county jail, then transferred to ICE.

That changed earlier this month, Orellana said.

On July 6, reports spread among immigrant families of groups of federal agents making multiple immigration arrests in the small town of 35,000 people.

“It was total panic,” Orellana said.

A well-connected member of the community, Orellana said he has heard reports of up to 15 immigration arrests in three days. ICE did not confirm that number or share details about enforcement operations in LaGrange.

LaGrange Police Department Chief Garrett Fiveash confirmed ICE has been present in the city in recent days. He said ICE agents have been using police department headquarters as a meeting place before staging their operations. He also said ICE agents have been driving unmarked vehicles.

In the early morning of July 7, Orellana livestreamed a string of unmarked vehicles leave police headquarters.

Quickly, he came upon a scene similar to the one in Marietta, with four unmarked vehicles surrounding a white truck, and agents with face coverings apprehending the truck’s occupants, men wearing identical shirts for a contracting company.

Shortly afterward, Orellana filmed federal agents approach him while he was in his vehicle. They asked where he was born and if he was a U.S. citizen, and Orellana was allowed to leave after showing identification.

Orellana said he wanted to film ICE in his city to try to be helpful to immigrant residents. He said he wants to work toward informing others about their rights and how to handle interactions with ICE.

Advocacy organizations such as the Immigrant Legal Resource Center have encouraged filming ICE operations as a way to learn about the manner in which encounters transpire and create accountability for how federal agents interact with the public.

There have been multiple occasions this year when official accounts of ICE shootings have been contradicted by video recordings from bystanders, including in the highly publicized cases of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. The recent ICE shooting in Houston is also being disputed by witnesses.

According to Orellana, he is one of many longtime Hispanic residents of LaGrange who have stepped up in recent days to protect more recently arrived immigrants.

“There’s a lot of people that, thanks to God, we’ve had the opportunity to become citizens of this country, so we can defend those who can’t defend themselves, speak for those who don’t have a voice,” he said. “We’re putting ourselves at their disposal to help out,” including by grocery shopping or offering rides to work, so that people without status can avoid driving while unlicensed.

For Lunar, who filmed the Marietta arrest, the motivation to alert others sprung in part from her family’s story. As a 5-year-old in 2011, Lunar said she was separated from her father, who was arrested on his way to work and deported. Lunar said she has never seen him in person again.

In his absence, her mother struggled to keep a roof over the family’s head: “It was rough,” Lunar said.

Lunar was driving to work when she saw the immigration enforcement operation July 8, a scene that she said she had seen “play out so many times through my phone in other parts of the country.”

She said she stopped and began filming to document the arrests and get contact information from the landscaping workers. Lunar can be heard in the video telling the workers as they’re being handcuffed and taken away to shout their names and the phone numbers of loved ones.

“My immediate concern was getting information from the victims they were taking to hopefully contact their families or get their faces out on the internet. That way, their families could recognize them,” she said. “I myself have unfortunately experienced neighbors just disappearing and finding out about it days later, weeks, even months later.”