Local immigrant families speak out about the impact of ICE detentions

Nicole Eigbrett is the co-director of the Asian American Resource Workshop and part of the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of MA, which runs a hotline about ICE sightings.

She said the network has trained more than 1,000 community members to verify ICE sightings and collect information about them.

“ICE agents [are] acting with complete impunity coming into our community wearing balaclavas, military gear, being fully undercover, refusing to identify who they are,” she said.

In the past week, Eigbrett said the hotline has had over 600 calls, and more than 95% of them were responded to by the volunteers.

“We’re feeling really proud of this. However, that doesn’t displace the fact that more than 400 people, maybe more, have been ripped apart from their families this past month alone,” she said.

“There’s no such thing as a good or bad immigrant,” Eigbrett said of the detentions.