At 5:30 am, the sky was pitch black in downtown Framingham. Five unmarked vehicles — some black, others gray — roamed around with tinted windows and Texas plates.
A group of people who monitor US Immigration and Customs Enforcement were out watching for activity.
One of the observers followed a car she suspected contained federal agents. She recorded a video that showed an officer turning his attention to her, telling her it’s dangerous to follow agents at work.
“I’m free to drive around and record in the country,” the woman protested.
“And we are free to find out who you are,” the agent said. “May I see your passport?”
The woman — a US citizen originally from Brazil who we’re identifying by her first initial, A. — presented her passport. The agent ran her name, then told her she could leave.
Immigration advocates say ICE arrests have been surging in Massachusetts since early September, when the Department of Homeland Security announced a renewed enforcement effort in the state. Reports have flooded social media of people arrested at courthouses, during traffic stops and on their way to work.
Connected through a community group called LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, activists — like the ones gathered early in the morning in Framingham — are documenting arrests throughout the state. LUCE volunteers operate a hotline and monitor social media for reports of ICE activity, then dispatch local observers to the scene. Once they get information, they report back to the larger group, and keep notes of everything they see.
According to LUCE, there are hundreds of “ICE watchers” at work, recording the names of those arrested to make sure they’re accounted for. Volunteers canvass neighborhoods in the wake of ICE activity. They say federal agents often arrest family breadwinners, leaving spouses and children in need of help, and LUCE tries to connect them with resources.
LUCE says it’s been getting about 100 calls a day since early September. The wee hours of the morning are often the most active, and MetroWest is one of several hotspots in eastern Massachusetts.
WBUR agreed to use only the first name or initial of the people interviewed for this story — they’re concerned that they or family members could be targeted based on their immigration status.
M. is a British-born US citizen who has lived here for 25 years. And he said he was never an activist until now.
“ICE can just show up and start asking people for their papers,” M. said. “That’s not the country that this is supposed to be. That’s Eastern Europe in the ’80s. I don’t want us to go to that.”
The agency did not respond to questions for this story; ICE has said previously that agents are in Massachusetts arresting “rapists, child abusers, drug traffickers, and other violent thugs.”
But the agency provides almost no details on the people agents arrest. During the last enforcement surge in Massachusetts in May, ICE announced about half of the 1,500 detainees had “significant criminal convictions or charges,” either in the US or abroad. Federal data show that ICE classified the vast majority of men in detention in Massachusetts as not a “threat.”
M. said it’s understandable that the government wants to hold immigrants accountable to the country’s laws. But he said communities are being uprooted and it’s hard to make sense of why.
“The government has turned a blind eye to people living here 20, 30, 40 years — and then suddenly (is) just rounding them up,” he said. “They’re clearly contributing to the community in really big ways.”
He said two days earlier, nine landscapers were arrested in the town of Hopedale, outside of Framingham.
The ICE watchers were on edge this Friday morning in late September — two days before, there was a deadly shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas — and the observers know the ICE officers were probably on edge, too.
The top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, US Attorney Leah Foley, has warned that impeding an arrest or assaulting an agent can be a criminal offense.
M. said the group’s role is to bear witness, not interfere.
Driving around Framingham, he listened to voice messages in a group chat about the latest ICE sighting.
He explained that the agents seem to travel in groups of five or six vehicles. One agent who wears a cowboy hat is referred to as “El Vaquero de Marlborough,” the cowboy of Marlborough; the ICE watchers call another agent “Sooner,” an agent who apparently told observers she comes from Oklahoma.
Most of the vehicles spotted by the ICE watchers over the past month have been unmarked Dodge Chargers and Durangos or Ford Explorers. Many have out-of-state plates, mostly from Texas, but also Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Rumors of ICE sightings are rampant. One report claimed there were agents inside Waltham district court, but they turned out to be local cops. Someone else said a large number of federal agents were gathering at a hotel, but ICE watchers found it was some kind of police conference.
Then, M. got a call that sounded legit.
“ICE is at the Milford courthouse,” the caller said, adding two other details: a blue Nissan Rogue and the officer was in plain clothes.
M. headed for Milford — a half hour south of Framingham — a town the ICE watchers say has been swarmed by immigration police in recent weeks. In front of the Milford courthouse, several ICE watchers said a female agent had just rushed out and crossed the street.
Three unmarked vehicles surrounded a small Ford. The ICE watchers ran over with their phones out, recording. Agents were pulling a man out of the car and handcuffing him. He shouted his name out.
The agents moved fast, pushing the man into their vehicle before speeding off.
A woman left in the driver’s seat of the Ford Focus looked shocked. She said her name is Mirella and she’d driven her friend Jesus up from Baltimore for a court date.
“That was my first time ever experiencing that and seeing that,” Mirella said. “That is insane.”
Jesus’ lawyer asked WBUR to use just his first name because she fears he could face retaliation by ICE. Court records show Jesus was facing charges for domestic violence and witness intimidation; the case was dismissed right before ICE grabbed him.
Mirella said she was waiting in the car when Jesus walked out of court. She said the agents seemed to be after someone else.
“They asked him if he was a completely different person,” she said. And “they just took him instead.”
ICE did not respond to questions about the arrest.
Mirella told the ICE watchers Jesus had the gas money she needed to drive home. One of them took up a collection, then handed Mirella a stack of 20s. It was enough for tolls and gas, plus a couple of meals on the way to Baltimore.
But there was more work to be done. That afternoon, the ICE watchers got hold of Jesus’ mother and sent her video of his arrest. That’s how his lawyer, Baltimore-based Hayley Tamburello, found out he was in custody.
Tamburello said he was flown to an ICE facility in Buffalo, and then to another in Natchez, Mississippi.
On Monday morning, 10 days after the arrest, Tamburello said neither her, nor Jesus’ mother, has received a call from him. She doesn’t know if that’s because he can’t make a phone call, or because he doesn’t have their numbers memorized.
Tamburello said the ICE watchers provide “an important service.” If it hadn’t been for them, she said, she doesn’t know how they would have found out what happened to Jesus.
“I wouldn’t have known,” Tamburello said. “I can tell you that.”