A nonprofit is using an Alexandria festival this Sunday to give Hispanics a crash course in immigration enforcement law. Tenants and Workers United plans to turn off the music at the Arlandria Chrilagua festival for 10 minutes to teach residents about search warrants, the right to a lawyer and what they can do when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shows up at the door. The lesson was planned after an ICE raid shocked the community.
ICE officials arrested Herlin Flores, 31, and Erick Carbajal, 21 — both natives of Honduras — outside Lillian’s restaurant in the Arlandria neighborhood July 14.
Elena Flores, mother of Herlin, said her son was chatting with others outside the restaurant after a soccer game when ICE officials in a van pulled up and asked for his papers. Now he sits in a detention center in Farmville, Va.
ICE officials said Flores and Carbajal were arrested as part of Operation Community Shield, which teams up with local law enforcement to target known gang members. Since the operation began in 2005, ICE has arrested 22,000 gang members and associates, including 250 gang leaders.
Flores denied her son was in a gang and said ICE was targeting innocent Hispanics.
ICE spokeswoman Cori Bassett said the agency was focused on “criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities, not sweeps or raids to target undocumented immigrants indiscriminately.”
Some immigrant residents won’t be showing up to hear the nonprofit’s presentation at the festival. Flores said her neighbors are scared to go out their front doors for fear of being picked up by immigration officials.
“Some people are saying they’re not going to come. They’re afraid,” said Esteban Garces, spokesman for Tenants and Workers United.
Immigration is on its way to becoming a hot-button issue in Annandale as well. ICE officials warned the unaccredited University of Northern Virginia on Thursday that it could lose its ability to enroll foreign students, who make up most of the student body.
The warning follows an investigation by the Chronicle of Higher Education, which reported that the school used visa loopholes to admit foreign students.
The school is still open and has 30 days to rebut ICE’s allegations.
