An East Boston man with legal status to be in the U.S. was arrested on his way to work and held for nearly two days in a Burlington ICE facility in May, his lawyers allege.
José Pineda’s attorneys have filed a complaint letter with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement recounting his ordeal. The letter is a required precursor to filing a lawsuit.
Pineda’s attorneys say there’s no clear explanation as to why he was pulled over and held, despite having on his person paperwork showing his right to be in the U.S.
“ It seems like the only reason why they actually did this is because of their racial animus and because he looked like a Latino man,” Pineda’s attorney, Victoria Miranda, said.
Pineda, 61, was born in El Salvador and has spent the last 30 years in the U.S. He is here under what’s known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, according to Lawyers for Civil Rights, who are representing him. That humanitarian status gives Pineda and other TPS holders the right to live and work in the U.S.
Despite that, on May 27 while Pineda was driving in Weymouth to a landscaping job in a company vehicle, he was stopped by ICE, according to the complaint letter. Five armed officers surrounded the vehicle. Pineda explained he was legally authorized to be in the U.S. and presented his driver’s license to an officer.
“The same officer then disrespectfully and incorrectly insulted Mr. Pineda in both English and Spanish, saying that if someone was not born in the United States, they do not have any rights,” the complaint states.
Pineda was arrested, cuffed and taken to an ICE facility in Burlington, a site that other detainees have called “abysmal” and “inhumane.” WBUR has reported that the Burlington office, which was designed to hold people for just a few hours, has been used to hold some people for days or for more than a week.
Pineda was held in Burlington for 36 hours before he was released. During that time, he said he was kept in an overcrowded room with 40 to 60 people and only a small sink and one toilet. According to the complaint, Pineda had to stand for most of his time there and there was no room to lie down to sleep.
“This is someone who has been complying for 30 years and simply got pulled over, arrested, chained, cuffed, brought to a facility with inhumane conditions for no reason at all,” his attorney, Miranda, said.
ICE officers confiscated Pineda’s license, social security card, employment authorization card and credit card. The also seized $600 in cash, which was not returned, according to the complaint letter.
ICE declined to comment on Pineda’s complaint.
In June, Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a similar complaint letter to DHS and ICE for a Chelsea family. Federal agents smashed he window of the family’s vehicle and pulled Daniel Flores-Martinez out of the car in front of his wife and children on the way to church.
Miranda said Pineda had to “succumb” in the moment to ICE agents, despite his legal status. But she hopes other immigrants worried about similar stops will know their rights and be able to state them to authorities.
Perhaps, she said, “immigration enforcement will get the message that this type of practice is not okay.”
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