Deportation Arrest Highlights Tensions in Los Angeles on Immigration
Worried that rumors could spread that they had been stopped by immigration officials, Ricardo Mireles,
the executive director of the school, urged students to carry school identification at all times.
Local leaders in California and other parts of the country are increasingly criticizing federal immigration agents, saying their actions threaten to erode the trust between local law enforcement officials
and immigrants, whom they depend on to report crimes.
Officers abided by the agency’s sensitive locations policy, which generally restricts arrests in schools, and stopped him about half a mile from the school, not knowing
that one of the daughters remained in the car, the officials said.
That’s one of the reasons we called immediately." Pablo Alvarado, the executive director of the day labor organization,
said the involvement from local officials probably helped keep Mr. Avelica in the country for now.
Mr. Avelica’s case is the latest example of the growing tension building in Los Angeles between federal immigration enforcers and local officials.
Outraged local officials said that the tactics showed a new kind of aggressiveness from immigration agents.