Raids shatter perception of Puerto Rico as a sanctuary for immigrants

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Pastor Nilka Marrero will slam her hand on the table, raise her voice and, if needed, shake her parishioners while playing the role of a federal agent.

Many of her parishioners are undocumented immigrants, and she believes that role-playing with them can help prepare them for the threat of arrest as authorities step up immigration raids to a scale never before seen in Puerto Rico.

“They appear and snatch people,” Marrero said.

For decades, undocumented immigrants have lived in the U.S. territory without fear of arrest. They’re allowed to open bank accounts and obtain a special driver’s license. Many have felt safe enough to open their own businesses.

Then, on Jan. 26, large-scale arrests began.

U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents raided a well-known Dominican community in a nod to a new policy of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pledged to deport millions of people who have entered the United States illegally.

The arrests have angered Puerto Rican officials and civil leaders who have created programs to help the island’s undocumented immigrants, many of whom are from the Dominican Republic.

Arrests and questions

An estimated 55,000 Dominicans live in Puerto Rico, although some experts believe the number could be even higher. It’s unclear how many are undocumented, although some 20,000 have the special driver’s license.

More than 200 people have been arrested since Jan. 26, nearly all men. Of those arrested, 149 are Dominican, according to data ICE provided The Associated Press.

Sandra Colón, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Puerto Rico, said the agency is focusing on those with a criminal record or who have received a final court ruling that they must leave the country. But she said she did not immediately have available how many of those arrested have criminal records.

Annette Martínez, Puerto Rico’s ACLU director, said it’s unknown where those arrested have been taken or if they have been deported. “We’re concerned about the different methods ICE is using for detainment,” she said.

A park gone silent

On a recent morning in Puerto Rico’s capital, speakers at a barbershop played an English tutorial as a couple of Dominican migrants studying to become U.S. citizens listened closely.

The business faces a park where the Dominican community had long gathered. It’s now mostly silent and empty. Gone is the lively merengue music, the excited chatter, the slap of dominoes.

An undocumented migrant who asked to be identified only by his nickname, “the fisherman,” because he feared jeopardizing his case in federal court, said he was arrested near the park.

He had illegally entered Puerto Rico in 2014 to seek more income because his wife back home had breast cancer and he could not afford her treatment working as a fisherman in the Dominican coastal town of Samaná.

“I needed to make a living,” he said.

His wife died, but the man decided to stay in Puerto Rico. His son also came to the island. The fisherman first worked in construction, but after falling off a second-story floor and shattering his pelvis, he resumed fishing once he healed.

He sold fish at the park until Jan. 26. That day, he was sitting in a van while his son bought them lunch.

“Three agents pulled me out,” he recalled.

They arrested seven people at that moment, including his son.

The man said they slept on the floor of several jails and were given only bread and water as they were transferred to the Puerto Rican town of Aguadilla, then Miami and finally Texas.

Authorities sent the man back to Puerto Rico for judicial proceedings, where he remains out on bond with an ankle monitor. His son is in a Miami jail.

“We’re torn apart,” he said as his voice cracked.

A swell of support

Every day, Marrero keeps an eye out for white vans that might be circulating near her church.

Inside, more than a dozen volunteers fold donated clothes and prepare free meals for undocumented immigrants who are too scared to leave their homes.

“They’re panicking,” said José Rodríguez, president of the Dominican Committee of Human Rights. “They’re afraid to go out; they’re afraid to take their children to school.”

In February, Puerto Rico’s Education Department noted that schools with a high number of Dominican students saw absentee rates of up to 70%. Officials have since ordered school principals to keep their gates closed and not open them to federal agents unless they have a warrant.

The mayor of San Juan, Miguel Romero, has said municipal police are not working for or helping federal agents, and that the city is offering legal aid and other assistance.

Meanwhile, Julio Roldán Concepción, mayor of Aguadilla, a northwest coastal town where many undocumented migrants arrive by boat, called for empathy.

“Any undocumented migrant can come by city hall if they need help,” he said. “I am not going to ask to see papers to give it to them. … We are all brothers here.”

Officials in Puerto Rico’s health sector also have offered to help undocumented migrants. Carlos Díaz Velez, president of the Association of Medical Surgeons, announced that undocumented migrants would receive online medical care “in light of the raids that have condemned thousands of immigrants to confinement.”

Gov. Jenniffer González, a Republican who supports Trump, initially said the president’s initiative would not affect immigrants in Puerto Rico. Since then, she has said the island “cannot afford to” ignore Trump’s directives on migrant arrests, noting that federal funds are at risk.

Shortly after the January arrests, the Episcopalian Church in Puerto Rico announced a new program that offers migrants food as well as legal, psychological and spiritual help. More than 100 people have sought help, said Bishop Rafael Morales Maldonado.

“The church is never going to be against a law, but it will oppose its effects,” he said.

‘An honorable, dignified return’

Federal agents initially targeted neighborhoods in San Juan, but they have since fanned out across the island and into work sites, Rodríguez said.

A man who declined to be identified because his court case is pending, said he was arrested on Feb. 26. He first arrived in Puerto Rico in 2003 but was arrested upon reaching shore. After being deported, he tried again in February 2007. He got a construction job and then opened his own company.

“I had never felt unsafe,” he said.

But one afternoon, a woman whose house he was working on complained about his work. The following day, federal agents arrested him and his employees as soon as they arrived at the work site. That’s when he found out the woman had taken a picture of his van and reported him.

“How can people want to hurt someone so much?” he said.

His attorney said he has a court date on April 1. The man said he applied years ago for U.S. residency but never received a response. His wife is a naturalized U.S. citizen and his daughter lives legally in Orlando, Florida.

As the arrests continue, Marrero, the pastor, keeps educating undocumented migrants. If they have children born in Puerto Rico, she urges to make sure to have their children’s passports and custody papers in order and on hand.

She says she asks them to repeat the responses they should give agents depending on what they’re told to do, noting that many don’t know how to read or write or do so poorly.

“We have prepared them for an honorable, dignified return,” she said.