In January, Delmy Rendón smashed her car into a deer on a rural highway in Upstate New York, near the Canadian border.
She did what any Spanish-speaking immigrant would do.
Instead of calling 911, she knocked on the door of the nearest house for help. The residents were not kind, her mother said.
That moment set off a sequence of events that landed Rendón in a Louisiana detention center.
Rendón was on a path to U.S. legal residency in a new, safer and more prosperous country. Instead, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement put her on a route back to Guatemala without her family.
After Rendón’s arrest, border patrol agents tracked her husband down at work and arrested him, too. When he refused to go without his daughters, officers went to West Carthage Elementary School and detained them, too, their grandmother said.
The three spent the night in a house near Buffalo under ICE watch.
Skarleth and Lexi are 9 and 6 years old. Lexi was born in the U.S.
On Friday, Rendón’s mother Dámaris Gonzalez pulled on her puffy vest and boarded a plane from Virginia to Syracuse. Like her daughter, she is not a U.S. citizen. She flew through Washington’s Dulles Airport with no visa and no English.
She took a risk, she said.
But after three months, she said, it’s time to beg for help.
“We don’t deserve this,” she told Syracuse.com in Spanish. “There’s a lot of fear and that’s why people haven’t wanted to speak out. But my love as a mother is so big. I feel like I have to scream: Delmy’s not a criminal.”
‘Catch and release’ is over
Syracuse.com’s investigation reveals an untold story about the new tactics employed by the federal government to detain people who sneaked illegally into America and made homes in Upstate New York.
Reporters reviewed body camera footage and federal court records, and they interviewed lawyers, advocates, immigrants and their relatives.
The reporting details an aggressive sting operation that has delighted federal agents but appalled immigrants and civil rights activists.
President Donald Trump’s administration is targeting, shackling and shipping out immigrants who have lived, worked and started families in the U.S. without permission — but also without getting into trouble.
Lawyers, advocates and people who have been pulled over say Oswego County sheriff’s deputies are cooperating with Border Patrol agents in a way that smacks of racial profiling. Videos and court records support that theory.
Deputies are stopping Hispanic drivers for minor, unprovable traffic violations like veering left of center, then handing them over to Border Patrol agents who are sometimes already at the scene, the Syracuse.com investigation shows.
In other cases, immigration agents act on anonymous tips and stake out homes. They follow migrant workers from work sites to restaurants.
Undercover officers in ski masks show up at dairy farms in unmarked cars.
They split up families. They take children from schools, even when they turn out to be U.S. citizens.
Before January, some Hispanic immigrants say, they were pulled over for traffic violations. But police issued a ticket and sent them along, like they did with anyone else.
But the days of that “catch and release” policy are over. Border Patrol told Syracuse.com it’s on a mission to prosecute and deport every person who crosses the border illegally, not just those who pose a threat. They said they will take every reasonable step to place people in detention and will work with every state and local agency to do it.
Since January, the federal government has charged nine people in Central New York with the crime of entering the country illegally more than once. That is their only crime.
An unknown number of other immigrants who are first-time violators have been arrested and sent into an immigration system so confusing and secretive that some advocates don’t even call it a court.
Across Upstate New York, these immigrants – born in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — are stopped on their way to their jobs in landscaping, construction, pizza shops and apple orchards.
In February, a Homeland Security investigator in plain clothes followed a Guatemalan man into his driveway in Fulton, grabbed his arm and told him he was not free to go, body camera video shows.
Gabrielle DiBella, a public defender in federal court, said the man was driving someone else’s car and there was no way agents had time to run his background before handcuffing him and taking him away.
“My gut feeling based on how many times this is happening in Fulton and Oswego,” she said, “I’m wondering if they’re just seeing cars being driven by people with a brown skin tone and they are just kind of going for it.”
Being here is their only crime
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, announced April 4 that it had arrested 133 “alien offenders” during a weeklong operation in Upstate New York.
The news release casts those detained as criminals, but only 20 had previous convictions, according to the news release. Some crimes cited were serious: homicide, sexual conduct with a child, gang assault. But ICE does not spell out any crimes for most of those arrested. The agency has not answered a request for a full accounting of those detained or an interview for this report.
The Border Patrol boasted about the arrests on Facebook and shared photos in graphics that look like “wanted” posters.
One photo shows seven people arrested in Fulton April 1. The men and women stand in a lineup with their hands cuffed behind their backs. Their faces are slightly blurred.
But their families recognized them immediately.
Syracuse.com talked to the people who know those faces, their names and stories.
They have been charged with no crimes other than illegally entering the U.S. They are brothers, spouses and parents. They replace roofs, make tamales, mulch suburban gardens and pack apples. They work the day shift and the night shift. They buy houses, pay rent and taxes.
When officers asked one man for his proof of citizenship, he tried to show them his American income tax returns.
Edilia Zavala Canales’ brother and partner have both been arrested in separate traffic stops in recent weeks by the “greens,” a nickname referring to Border Patrol’s uniforms.
Returning to Honduras is not an option, she said, because of intimidation by gangs. She asked a lawyer to write a letter in English that explains her request for asylum. She carries it everywhere.
“It’s scary,” she said in Spanish. “You just sort of know that going out, you can be followed just for being Hispanic.”
‘Get out of your car’
Cases so far this year in Upstate New York have a common theme: The federal government is arresting Hispanic people who have drawn their attention for no reason other than the possibility that they are here illegally.
Those in federal court are charged with just one crime: entering the country again after a previous deportation. They have no defense.
Their lawyers do their best in sentencing reports to show that their clients contribute to the U.S. economy and culture by working hard, paying taxes, supporting families and going to church.
Many of these arrests were in Oswego County, where Sheriff Don Hilton has been clear about his support for Trump. He flew a Trump flag from the county patrol boat in 2020, and earlier this year was an invited guest to Trump’s address to Congress. He was unavailable for comment this week and Undersheriff John Toomey did not respond to an interview request.
Civil rights activists are outraged by tactics that appear to be racial profiling.
“A green person just comes and speaks Spanish and bangs on the window: ‘Get out of your car,’ ” said Erin Fiorini, a volunteer advocate for the Syracuse Immigrant and Refugee Defense Network. “I’ve had the suspicion that they must be filling some quota or something.”
Sheriff’s deputies often say they are calling in Border Patrol for translation services. After all, Border Patrol has an office in Oswego County.
But Syracuse immigration lawyer Jose Perez said deputies know what’s going to happen when they call Border Patrol to a car with four Hispanic men on the way to work. They could instead use a neutral translation service.
“You know they’re going to be detaining these people, and that they don’t speak English and that they probably are not legally in the country,” he said.
It is unconstitutional to question someone simply because of their race, he said.
“Just driving while brown or just speaking with an accent should not be the basis for a stop, should not be the basis for detention, should not be the basis for even questioning,” he said.
Perez, who has handled immigration cases for 16 years, said he instructs his clients to remain silent and ask for a lawyer.
Stakeouts and traffic stops
In January, an anonymous source tipped off Homeland Security that Benjamin Chavarria-Carrera, born in Guatemala, was living illegally in Syracuse. ICE staked out his home and arrested him, court records show.
Chavarria-Carrera is the father of two children. One, a teenager, is a U.S. citizen. A family friend is now caring for him, according to a federal public defender.
On Feb. 28, a Homeland Security investigator in plain clothes followed Jonas Morales-Lopez into his driveway in Fulton in an unmarked black SUV.
Morales-Lopez had just finished the night shift at a bakery. Hundreds of pages of documents provided to public defenders do not show any reason he was followed or a warrant for his arrest, his public defender said.
On March 3, Oswego County sheriff’s deputies stopped Facundo Carmelino Perez-Vasquez on Route 3 in Fulton. They said he drove left of center. Within three minutes, deputies radioed for help from Border Patrol officers, according to 911 broadcasts.
They arrested Perez-Vasquez, from Guatemala, and two of his passengers, federal court records show.
On March 10, Oswego County sheriff’s deputies stopped Mauro Rigoberto Hernandez-Batz on Brackett Road in Hannibal. Within minutes, a Border Patrol agent arrived and arrested him.
Hernandez-Batz was born and raised in Guatemala by a single mother who cut hair and made aprons, according to a sentencing memo by a federal public defender.
He came to the U.S. for the first time in 2006 and was deported in 2009. Eight years later he returned, met a woman and fell in love. They have two children. They go to church. They enjoy walks in the neighborhood.
He has worked in landscaping jobs, construction, mill factory work and food production.
On March 24, ICE agents in unmarked vans followed Yovani Humberto Marroquin-Ramirez and three others from a roofing site to Tu Casita restaurant in Syracuse.
ICE agents arrested him and his co-workers. His sister said she panicked when she didn’t hear from him. On Facebook, she found her answer: a witness’s video of him and their other brother’s arrest.
Marroquin-Ramirez came to the states from Guatemala to provide for his parents, his sister said.
Marroquin-Ramirez paid a smuggler $15,000 to take him on the treacherous journey from Guatemala to the border. He walked, rode in trucks and even rode inside shipping containers. He was almost immediately apprehended and sent back. His second time he paid the fee again and successfully crossed, his sister said.
A wide turn, then trouble
On April 1, Oswego County sheriff’s deputies stopped Doris Gissela Aleman-Bonilla for speeding, records show.
She told her story to DiBella, the assistant public defender in federal court. Aleman-Bonilla said she was driving to work people who do not have cars.
Aleman-Bonilla said sheriff’s deputies and Border Patrol were traveling together when they stopped her.
The federal government alleges in court records that she admitted she was in the country illegally. She was last deported in 2014 and returned, prosecutors said.
Aleman-Bonilla said Border Patrol agents gave her a choice: self-deport to Honduras with your two teenagers or spend a year in jail. The teens have immigration proceedings scheduled for June. DiBella said she is in the Oswego County jail.
The same morning, deputies found another car full of immigrants on the way to work on Route 104.
They pulled Carlos Palacios over for allegedly making too wide of a turn on the way to a construction job, he said. Palacios, from El Salvador, told Syracuse.com he saw Border Patrol officers driving behind Oswego deputies.
Palacios proved he had the proper approval for U.S. residency. His passengers could not.
An uncle rushed to the scene to argue with Border Patrol that the passengers were good people on their way to work, a video shows.
Still, three passengers were arrested. Palacios said they never gave him a traffic ticket.
A video shows that after the men were loaded in a van, a Border Patrol officer and a sheriff’s deputy bumped fists.
One passenger, Emilio Sanchez, who came from Honduras about four years ago, is in an ICE detention center in Batavia.
His brother, Dani Zavala and sister Edilia Zavala Canales recognized him and two others in the center of the photo lineup of seven arrests posted on Facebook by the Buffalo office of the Border Patrol.
Sanchez sends much of his pay home to his mother and another brother, who needs medical care, they said.
In the past, Zavala Canales said, they would be treated like anyone who broke traffic laws or drove without a license. Now, immigration officials show up, too.
“We are just people trying to work,” Zavala Canales said in Spanish. “This illegalness that is used here, that name, we accept that, but we are just people trying to work … We don’t come to rob you or do damage to anyone here.”
Border Patrol posted a photo of Zavala Caneles’ boyfriend on Facebook in February. They called him an “illegal alien from Honduras who is now facing criminal charges.”
Ramon Rosa Caceres-Caceres was on his way from his day job at a nutrition bar plant to his night job at an apple orchard, she said.
Zavala-Canales usually wakes up to her boyfriend’s texts, saying he arrived safely at his second job. This time, he disappeared.
Oswego County sheriff’s deputies stopped Caceres-Caceres on Route 104 in the town of Hannibal. An officer told him Caceres-Caceres drove across the white line on the side of the road and asked for his license. Moments later, the officer traded places at the car window with a Border Patrol officer who asked about his immigration status, body camera footage shows.
Caceres-Caceres “has been living a quiet life in the United States, working steadily, contributing to the tax base through payroll deductions, and not relying on public assistance,” a federal public defender wrote in his sentencing memo.
He has no criminal record. He has no tattoos. He is not affiliated with any criminal or terrorist groups, the document says.
But there is no defense. He was here illegally.
The government’s case against Caceres-Caceres is done in federal court. He is likely to be deported for his third time, his lawyer said.
Hope after Sackets Harbor
One recent case in Sackets Harbor attracted national attention.
On March 28, Border Patrol agents visited a dairy farm near Lake Ontario to arrest a man wanted on child pornography charges. Once they found him, they continued to search the farm.
They detained a mother and three children and sent them to a detention center in Texas. Encouraged by the school district’s superintendent, more than 1,000 people rallied to release the children from ICE custody. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, and the local state senator, a Republican, successfully called for the family to be released.
Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, has a summer home in Sackets Harbor that provided a high-profile backdrop for protesters.
For once, activists said, they felt as if their protests worked.
That gives Dámaris Gonzalez hope to bring home her daughter, the woman who hit a deer.
During an interview with Syracuse.com, Delmy’s mother looked at the camera and made a direct appeal for help.
“I want to make a call to Gov. Hochul and Sen. Cory Booker,” she said in Spanish. “If they hear me, if they see me, maybe they can do something … I want to hope. I want them to help me.”
Activists, lawyers and federal public defenders say arrests in Upstate New York fell into two categories during the end of President Joe Biden’s term: People who had just crossed illegally and people who had committed a crime other than illegal crossing. Others were mostly left to live and work in peace, they said.
When Trump took office in January, he immediately rescinded Biden’s policy priorities.
Jessica Maxwell, director of the Workers’ Center of Central New York, said before January undocumented farm workers would fill her voicemail with questions about taxes or workers’ compensation.
Now, she is helping people organize custody for their children in case they are arrested. People call to say their partners have gone missing.
Activists have set up networks for people to share information about Border Patrol sightings on roads or farms. She believes the witness network is prompting investigators to use unmarked cars. They showed up at a farm in Cortland County last week in ski masks, she said.
“For people who have come from countries where there are paramilitaries and armed gangs … I don’t think we fully understand the extent that this is retraumatizing people,” Maxwell said.
Everyone is weighing the risks and rewards associated with speaking up.
Maxwell brought Gonzalez to the Workers’ Center to talk to Syracuse.com reporters about how her daughter’s deer accident, then detention, split up her family.
“Any little thing turns into a big deal now,” Gonzalez said in Spanish.
Rendón’s family is trying to decide how much more publicity they can risk and whether it is safe to draw attention to her husband before his next hearing date.
In Fulton, some people wanted to talk to Syracuse.com while others preferred to stay in the kitchen.
One day, when it was time to leave an interview, a woman called to say she heard Border Patrol officers were spotted a few blocks away.
Like a tornado warning, everyone went outside to see.
They can’t hide their skin color or their trucks with ladders on the roof, they said.
They understand they are not supposed to be here.
It’s a risk they’re willing to take.
Michelle Breidenbach can be reached at 315-470-3186 or mbreidenbach@syracuse.com.
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