NEW YORK — Joselyn Chipantiza-Sisalema, a 20-year-old student originally from Ecuador who is enrolled in a GED program here, was greeted by family and friends July 16 at the Port Authority bus terminal. She had just been released after three weeks in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Monroe, Louisiana.
Chipantiza-Sisalema was arrested at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in Manhattan June 24 after a routine immigration hearing on her asylum petition. Her family says she faces persecution and certain death if she returns to Ecuador.
“Federal agents, lying in wait outside the courtroom, arrested her anyway despite a pending court date,” the New York Daily News reported, “tossing her in a detention cell with 50 other women where she sleeps on the floor, has no access to a shower and has worn the same clothes for more than a week.” This was a room at the federal building that is supposed to be used as a processing center.
“We had to beg the people working there that they give us something to eat, they didn’t even give us water. Sometimes a few cookies they’d throw in there,” she said. “They had us in there like animals.”
Two videos were recorded by immigrant workers ICE detained in a holding cell. More than 20 men are seen laying on the floor atop thin blankets or on benches near two metal toilets.
After 10 days Chipantiza-Sisalema and some other women were shackled on their hands, feet and waists and flown to Louisiana. Friends, family and people from the school worked to win her freedom.
Other students are being arrested. In Massachusetts, 18-year-old Milford High School student Marcelo Gomes da Silva was detained by ICE May 31 on his way to volleyball practice. He was born in Brazil and his student visa had lapsed. The ICE agent told him he was arrested “because you’re illegal. You’re an immigrant.” The agency claimed their target was Gomes da Silva’s father.
On June 1, Gomes da Silva would have played in the band at the high school’s graduation ceremony. The class valedictorian’s speech called for his release. Students, still in graduation robes, marched a mile to the town hall where they rallied for his freedom, along with 200 teachers in solidarity. The next day students organized a walkout carrying “Free Marcelo” signs and wearing Brazilian flags.
The state’s largest teachers union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, commended those who walked out, denouncing ICE’s actions as “cruel.” Gomes da Silva was released on bond June 5.