By: Mars Marte
On Oct. 22, Puerto Rican residents noticed an uptick in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, prompting contention from local officials and leaving communities in fear.
ICE agents have been seen openly carrying weapons throughout the streets of residential areas and approaching any individual recording them in Río Piedras, Capetillo, Barrio Obrero, Villa Palmeras, and Villa Capri, shaking up residents. Latin City, a cultural page, shares locals’ videos documenting the scene.
The community’s fear was amplified by agents targeting immigrants from data supplied by the government. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) compelled the Transportation and Public Works Department (DTOP) to hand over records on 6,321 immigrants with provisional driver’s licenses to federal investigators in Jan. 2025, as reported by The Rio Times. The DTOP issues and maintains records of driver licenses for Puerto Rican citizens, even those who lack the proper legal forms. Information included in the data handover was home addresses of those with provisional licenses, breaching a confidentiality law settled in 2013, which protects the information of immigrants, according to ACLU Puerto Rico.
Those who had sought to obtain provisional licenses in the past had done so under the promise their information would be protected despite their undocumented status. A move made by Puerto Rico’s previous governor Alejandro García Padilla to increase safety measures by ensuring all drivers held the proper training. With the handover, the trust immigrants had built with PR’s local officials faced a severe fracture.
The fragmented faith in officials faces further complications as community leader Jonathan Hernández reported that the raids appeared to be carried out by agents who stopped people because of their skin color, clothing, or appearance. The execution of enforcement described by Hernández brings in the question of racial profiling. A sentiment that is further amplified by a witness claims to Breakthrough News that they watched a Puerto Rican citizen being surrounded by officials demanding to see their ID. The altercation highlights citizens’ concerns with the conduct of the raids, as Puerto Rico’s classification as a commonwealth grants islanders birthright citizenship.
The island’s proximity to the Caribbean islands and Latin America has left Puerto Rico as a hub of immigration for fellow Latin and Caribbean individuals. A practice that’s been practiced throughout the archipelago long before the contemporary political climate. With the raids in effect, the community finds itself devastated by the loss of their fellow neighbors.
Those residing there described those detained or stopped as “hard-working people, many with families,” according to Locals’ conversations with Minority Rights. In a recounting of the arrests, a restaurant staff member told The Rio Times that outside his workplace agents had arrested a customer who had come to eat with his wife and three children.
Officials on and off the island, such as Puerto Rico’s Senate spokesman Luis Javier Hernández Ortiz and the Mayor of San Juan Miguel Romero, have condemned the ICE raids in a community gathering held in Barrio Obrero. The officials’ condemnations of ICE’s actions are further propelled by Romero’s orders to municipal police not to assist federal agents with any ICE operations, as reported by The Rio Times. With local law enforcers being ordered to stand down, citizens within the impacted neighborhoods are able to direct their worries to federal agents, not their own enforcement. Thus allowing a means for the people’s trust to be restored after the data breach.
Yet despite actions made by local officials to lighten the current strain, the repercussions of the raids have rattled residents. The current number of arrests and detainees remains uncounted, with estimates ranging from six to fifteen people in custody, many of Dominican descent, locals explain to The Rio Times.
Annette Martínez Orabona, executive director of the ACLU of Puerto Rico, has alleged the arrests were made without the proper warrants, contributing to what she describes as a pattern of intimidation, according to The Rio Times.
The raids complicate the relationship between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic as the islands sit nearly 237 miles apart and share a deep history of migration.
Approximately 100,000 individuals with Dominican background now reside in Puerto Rico; 30,000 are thought to be undocumented, according to Minority Rights. Despite suspicion of illegal immigration, those who moved from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico have carved out lives for themselves and their families, according to Minority Rights.
Previous ICE raids in Jan. 2025 impacted the neighborhood of Santurce, San Juan, and left residents unnerved. Rev. Nilka Marrero, a Methodist pastor at Iglesia Metodista San Pablo in Barrio Obrero, describes the contrast in the community after the operations.
“This [community] used to be so vivacious, so dynamic. Neighborhood residents used to fill the square, playing dominoes and chess, shopping at the produce carts, and children playing in the park [Rev. Marrero describes in her recount to reports at ZNetwork] Now, we’re like a ghost neighborhood. People are hiding. They pull down the window shades of their houses and stay inside for one, even two days at a time, until someone lets them know it’s safe to come out.”
The sentiment shared by Rev. Marrero highlights the fears the citizens of Puerto Rico have been subjected to in recent times. With the current actions made by ICE compounded by the previous loss of community, those on the island, such as The Feminist Collective PR, question the legitimacy of the U.S.’ right to determine who the island’s neighbors are and aren’t.
The raids are expected to continue throughout the island, with ICE officials citing no end date for the operation. With no plans to cease the campaign in sight, citizens of the island have collaborated to protest and condemn the actions of ICE, according to Breakthrough News.
Kiara, a member of the Fire Ants of Rio Piedras, a community-led advocacy group, told Telemundo about their mission during a protest on Oct. 26 in Puerto Rico. “We want justice for the Dominicans. We want justice for our family, for our neighbor, for our people,” said Kiara. “And we want Dominicans to be free to have their future here in Puerto Rico, and we are going to fight for that.”