A total of 25 immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras, construction workers, were detained at two separate locations by immigration agents on a Pennsylvania state highway while on their way to work.
The workers were detained Tuesday morning and only some are known to have been sent to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition Executive Director Jazmine Rivera said in a statement today.
The first arrest took place at 7:00 a.m. when a state trooper stopped a vehicle and asked the driver and those accompanying him for identification. After providing their documents, immigration agents intervened and arrested 22. Only one worker, a U.S. citizen, was released.
An hour later, the Rapid Response Network of Centre County, Pennsylvania, received a call from a community member who reported seeing six immigration agents detain three Latinos in another vehicle.
All were co-workers and were involved in the construction of Mount Nittany Hospital, the statement added.
It also indicates that days before the arrests, workers had reported that they suspected that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were watching the construction site where they worked and that they had been followed at the end of their workday.
Thanks to that surveillance, ICE was able to locate them on their way to work, Rivera said.
Activists are trying to identify those arrested. In addition, the Centre County Rapid Response Network, in collaboration with the People’s Defense Front and the Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity have mobilized community members to patrol the affected areas to prevent further violence by ICE.
“The Centre County community, including workers visiting throughout the region and Virginia and Maryland, are now terrified and fear for their safety,” Rivera further noted.
“It is our responsibility to uphold human rights and ensure that all people are treated with dignity and respect. Immigrants, like all residents, deserve to live without fear of discrimination or exclusion,” he added (With information from EFE).
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