Household of legal immigrants raided by ICE
from the New York Times
U.S. Raid on an Immigrant Household Deepens Anger and Mistrust
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: April 10, 2007
EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. — Awakened by banging on the front door and the shouts of strangers inside her family’s sprawling suburban home, Erica Leon, 12, thought at first that the house was on fire.
Then her bedroom door burst open, she said, and armed men in blue bulletproof vests pushed in, demanding to know if she was hiding someone. They pressed on to the room where 4-year-old Carson was asleep with their mother, and pulled off the covers.
“They started screaming at my mom real bad,” Erica said. “I wasn’t crying, but I was, like, terrified. Like, who are you guys?”
They were federal immigration agents hunting for an illegal immigrant — Erica’s long-absent father, Patrizio Wilson Garcia, who was ordered deported after his 2003 divorce from Erica’s mother, Adriana, and has not lived in the house since. But they had entered a three-generation immigrant household where everyone was an American citizen by naturalization or birth.
To the Leon family, Hispanics who have owned their house here on Copeces Lane for seven years, the early-morning raid on Feb. 20 seemed like the ultimate indignity in a history of hostile scrutiny. But to some residents, it was an overdue response by federal authorities to long-simmering concerns about illegal immigration on Long Island’s East End.
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U.S. Raid on an Immigrant Household Deepens Anger and Mistrust
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: April 10, 2007
EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. — Awakened by banging on the front door and the shouts of strangers inside her family’s sprawling suburban home, Erica Leon, 12, thought at first that the house was on fire.
Then her bedroom door burst open, she said, and armed men in blue bulletproof vests pushed in, demanding to know if she was hiding someone. They pressed on to the room where 4-year-old Carson was asleep with their mother, and pulled off the covers.
“They started screaming at my mom real bad,” Erica said. “I wasn’t crying, but I was, like, terrified. Like, who are you guys?”
They were federal immigration agents hunting for an illegal immigrant — Erica’s long-absent father, Patrizio Wilson Garcia, who was ordered deported after his 2003 divorce from Erica’s mother, Adriana, and has not lived in the house since. But they had entered a three-generation immigrant household where everyone was an American citizen by naturalization or birth.
To the Leon family, Hispanics who have owned their house here on Copeces Lane for seven years, the early-morning raid on Feb. 20 seemed like the ultimate indignity in a history of hostile scrutiny. But to some residents, it was an overdue response by federal authorities to long-simmering concerns about illegal immigration on Long Island’s East End.
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