Schneiderman, along with acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, condemned the 60 ICE raids made in NY courts since the beginning of the year. “Identified as sensitive locations where ICE enforcement is to be generally avoided”, Schneiderman said.
Schneiderman and Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez spoke out against the growing number of ICE arrests.
William Siguencia Hurtado, 34, who has lived in the USA since 2002 and is married to an American citizen with whom he has two children, testified in a 2012 fatal shooting of a 20-year-old man outside and Bensonhurst club and provided statements to the DA in another murder case, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him into custody this summer when he did his yearly check in.
“I am sad because he’s not with us”, his wife Marta Mizhquri said. “I’m mad because he shouldn’t be detained”. He was helping out. Mizhquiri is a USA citizen and so are their two kids, but for the past month William Siguencia Hurtado, originally from Ecuador, has been detained by ICE after he voluntarily checked in. For several years, his lawyer has worked to get him legal residency. “We’ve put five killers in prison and he helped protect our communities, and now, years later, he is in detention”, said Eric Gonzalez, Acting Brooklyn District Attorney.
ICE officials also recently arrested three people outside Queens Criminal Court after activists said they arrived to detain a woman who may have been a victim of human trafficking. In a statement Thursday, ICE maintained, “Many of the arrest targets ICE seeks out, at or near court houses have prior criminal convictions”.
“No matter how hard you try to do the right thing, no matter how fearless you are in coming forward to help the district attorney’s office.you will still be held in detention and be subject to deportation”, says Gonzalez.