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As the city of Los Angeles reels from large-scale immigration raids and the resulting civil unrest, immigration attorneys and advocates in Arizona are sounding the alarm that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is expected to conduct workplace raids on Tuesday in at least five locations across the state.
Salvador Macias, a Phoenix-based immigration attorney, told Phoenix New Times on Monday that less than a week ago, he heard from “a pretty credible and reliable source” that ICE had requested search warrants from a federal judge in Phoenix for five locations in the state. Macias said he was not aware of the specific locations.
“A judge did grant the search warrants to be used tomorrow,” Macias said.
New Times could not independently confirm Macias’ information, and ICE did not immediately return a request for comment. But Macias is far from the only advocate warning of possible raids on Tuesday.
Beth Strano, the director of the Borderlands Resource Initiative, believes the targeted locations will be “low-hanging fruit” — hotels, construction sites and businesses that have failed immigration audits in the past. The advocacy group Puente also posted on social media that dairy farms and places that have been targeted before are high-risk areas.
Because “it seems like ICE is getting a lot of pressure from supervisors" like White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Macias thinks agents could target locations that have the “possibility of collateral pickups.” Macias specifically cited grocery stores in Latino neighborhoods as possible raid locations — ICE could raid a grocery store to detain employees but also catch customers they suspect are undocumented in their dragnet.
Undocumented shoppers might “give themselves away by running,” Macias said. “And once they start running, it gives the officer a reason to ask, ‘Hey, why are you running? What’s your status?’” For that reason, advocates suggest anyone who encounters an ICE raid calmly walk away from it instead of running. Anyone who is picked up, Macias said, should inform agents that they want to fight the case and speak to an attorney, but otherwise remain silent.
Immigration advocates said a better option would be to stay home if possible — even if that means taking a sick day or avoiding the grocery store. While taking a day off might seem impossible for some, legal consultant Francisco Aguirre urged people to consider the risks. He has canceled his appointments for Tuesday to encourage clients not to leave the house, though he said he’ll be available if they need him.
“Going to work and getting arrested far outweighs not making 150 bucks a day,” Aguirre said. Being detained comes with “long-term consequences” that could mean days to months out of work, at a minimum. At maximum, it could mean being shipped off to a detention center or essentially disappeared by the U.S. government.
“Stay home,” Aguirre said. “Just chill, do whatever, play with your kids.”
If there are large-scale workplace raids, it remains to be seen how the Valley will react. The unrest in Los Angeles is the product of such an ICE operation, as community members formed a spontaneous protest that has now gone on for days. There have been documented instances of violence from some protesters and from law enforcement. President Donald Trump used the protests as an excuse to deploy the National Guard to “protect” ICE agents — over the objection of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Though the heat in Arizona tends to tamp down widespread activism in the summer months, Macias thinks “we’re probably going to start seeing some sort of protest.” How local, state and federal law enforcement respond to such a protest may determine how closely events in the Valley mirror those in Los Angeles. If the George Floyd protests of 2020 are any indication, Phoenix police could crack down hard.
All of that could be avoided, Democratic state Sen. Analise Ortiz told New Times, if the Trump administration weren’t hellbent on goosing its deportation numbers by targeting largely law-abiding immigrants.
“People are already living in just absolute fear,” Ortiz said. “These are the kinds of circumstances that do not make our communities safer.”
