Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
FAIRFAX, VA — (CNN) A local Pastor is at an ICE field office in Fairfax Friday morning looking to talk to someone about the arrest of about half a dozen Latino men outside his church last week. Pastor Keary Kincannon got into the ICE office after an anti-deportation rally where he and other local religious leaders spoke out against the arrests.
“We demand that ICE stop this practice and that they allow people to access the services they need,” said Alice Fonz, board president of the Centerville Immigration Forum.
Keary said Feb. 8, eight men who had stayed at the church’s hypothermia center had walked across the street from the church to a parking lot when they were taken by surprise.
“On that morning, we’re told that a number of unmarked cars filled with ICE officers came in and swupt down upon them, and asked them all to get against the wall. They detained them for about 2-and-a-half hours before they started taking them away,” Keary said.
Ice said in a statement officers approached the men and conducted “consensual interviews about a potential target. In the process of those interviews, the officers identified two criminal aliens amenable to removable.”
The statement said one of the people was a citizen and national of Honduras who had been deported in 2014 and was convicted on multiple misdemeanor charges from 2000 to 2014, and a felony drug charge. The other was a citizen and national of El Salvador and a legal permanent resident of the US but had been convicted on a number of misdemeanors, including driving drunk.
The religious leaders believe ICE is violating its own policy of not making arrests near “sensitive locations” like houses of worship.
The ICE statement said, “The ICE sensitive locations policy, which remains in effect, provides that enforcement actions at sensitive locations should generally be avoided, and require either prior approval from an appropriate supervisory official or exigent circumstances necessitating immediate action. DHS is committed to ensuring that people seeking to participate in activities or utilize services provided at any sensitive location are free to do so without fear or hesitation.”
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