When immigration officers helicoptered into Chico in August, a network of volunteers was prepared. When the officers slipped out before dawn the next morning, they left people with both relief and lingering questions, according to NorCal Resist Chico.
NorCal Resist volunteers say they don’t know whether the officers were merely stopping in Chico on their way somewhere, or whether attention from protesters dissuaded them from taking enforcement actions that they might have preferred to be surprise.
Regardless, the visit showed the role that community preparation can play in view of immigration raids that have produced both violent as well as quiet disruptions to communities across the country. NorCal Resist says that community response is critical as Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) ramps up with a larger budget.
A NorCal Resist Chico organizer who asked not to be identified pointed out that ICE now has the largest budget among federal law enforcement agencies. “They’re going to have the most funding, a lot more resources, and they will ramp up,” she said.
President Donald Trump said Oct. 23 that he had changed his mind about concentrating contingents of federal forces in the Bay Area after talking to top executives in the tech industry. But Mission Local and other publications reported that anti-ICE protests in San Francisco continued, and officials in Santa Clara County and Oakland were still on guard.
Communities throughout the country have formed rapid response teams to document ICE arrests and raids. Protesters often point to the lack of due process in immigrant detentions. In Butte County, NorCal Resist Chico holds frequent trainings for potential volunteers and has been building up its rapid response and court accompaniment program.
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) says it doesn’t assist ICE in compliance with state law, and it has ended alternative custody for some immigrant inmates since the onset of the immigration crackdown.
Community pushback to ICE
On the morning of Aug. 11, the NorCal Resist Migra Watch Hotline was alerted that two aircraft owned by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and operated by ICE landed at the Chico Regional Airport. NorCal Resist says it was “tipped off.”
One of the aircraft was a Black Hawk helicopter; NorCal Resist said it couldn’t identify the other. But the Rapid Response Network says community team members were able to follow “people in the aircraft” as they left the airport and drove to the Oxford Suites hotel.
“We maintained eyes on their vehicles until they traveled back to the airport for takeoff the following morning,” NorCal Resist Chico said in a written statement.
Chico’s Oxford Suites management today asked ChicoSol to contact its Oregon corporate office for comment. That office did not respond to a request for confirmation that ICE agents spent the night there in August.
Almost 25 demonstrators protested ICE in front of the southeast Chico hotel that night, some staying until about 1 a.m., when police drove through the parking lot. An observer said the arrival of police “caused a bit of commotion in the crowd” and the group dispersed without incident.
“We urge all hotels, motels, and inns, to refuse their services to oppressive institutions, like ICE, that are directly responsible for terrorizing, harming, and kidnapping people in our communities,” NorCal Resist Chico said in a written statement to ChicoSol.
The ICE website says its enforcement work “is critical to the enforcement of immigration law against those who present a danger to our national security, are a threat to public safety, or who otherwise undermine the integrity of our immigration system.”
But Diane Suzuki, a Chico activist and KZFR radio show host, said she was moved to take NorCal Resist trainings because of her family background.
“In my own family history, there were elders who were rounded up and incarcerated in World War II without due process,” Suzuki said.
She said she’s learned from both trainings given in person and online, and the two formats offer different features.
“I’m still waiting to feel real comfortable in going out to responses,” Suzuki told ChicoSol. “Being a brown person, I hesitate. My passion now is to try and help people whose rights are being violated right in front of our eyes.”
A Butte County farmworker deported
ICE has conducted targeted enforcements in Butte, Glenn and Tehama counties since the beginning of the immigration crackdown. In those actions, officers arrive in search of individuals who may have come in contact with police or the court system –whether or not they have been convicted — and don’t yet have citizenship.
One of the first such targeted enforcements produced the detention and deportation of Paulo Frutos-Perez, a case that was documented by the Chico News & Review.
One of Frutos-Perez’s former employers, Tom Bush, joined the No Kings 2 day protest in Chico. Bush said he and other orchardists pleaded in letters to the judge not to deport their farmworker, who had been in this country for more than 20 years.
“We never had a prayer,” Bush told ChicoSol. “He went straight to detention. They held him for a while, then they deported him back to Mexico. I really liked the guy — he was a great worker, really a hard worker, and he knew how to do everything. We really miss him.”
Bush said the immigration crackdown has produced a labor shortage. “There’s not enough time or people to do as well as we were doing before,” said Bush, who owns about 20 acres of walnuts. “I’m sure Paulo’s not the only one who got snatched.”
Bush’s wife, Tina Flynn, said that in the campaign to save Frutos-Perez, she emphasized the economic ramifications.
“These people are irreplaceable,” Flynn said. “We said this would be a great detriment to our farming community. We can’t find other people to do the work.”
In the Chico News & Review story, journalist Ken Magri notes that Frutos-Perez had a couple of past DUI convictions, and that he was required to wear a GPS ankle monitor as part of his sentence. “It’s believed this is how ICE found him,” Magri wrote.
No more ankle monitors for some immigrant inmates
Sometime after the February arrest of Frutos-Perez, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office ended the use of Alternative Custody Supervision – which can include use of ankle monitors – for some immigrant inmates.
It’s not clear there is any connection to the Frutos-Perez case, but in a written statement to ChicoSol, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said that if ICE has “expressed interest” in an inmate who has been sentenced to jail, that person “must complete that term in custody.”
“Federal authorities have advised BCSO that it may take enforcement action in the community if such individuals are released before their sentences are complete,” Honea wrote earlier this week.
“If an inmate participating in an Alternative Custody Supervision (ACS) program were arrested by ICE before finishing their sentence, that individual would be deported before the court’s sentence had been served,” the statement says. “This would create a legal conflict for the Sheriff’s Office, as we are required by law to execute the court’s order of confinement.
“There are also public safety concerns whenever arrests occur in uncontrolled areas and we are seeking to minimize that. For these reasons, BCSO requires inmates in such cases to complete their sentences in the jail facility rather than in an alternative custody program.”
NorCal Resist will hold an online Nov. 4 Migra Watch training for the local Rapid Response Network, an online Nov. 5 Accompaniment and Court Watch Training, and an in-person Nov. 9 Migra Watch training.
Leslie Layton is editor of ChicoSol where this story was first published. It was produced with support from Aqui Estamos/Here We Stand, an immigration reporting project under American Community Media.
