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Immigration Raid: One Family's Gripping Account

Ramon Taylor

   CHALMETTE, LOUISIANA - It was the morning after Honduran national
   Marvin Rivera-Martinez was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs
   Enforcement (ICE) officials in front of his wife and U.S.-born
   7-month-old child.

   Nervous and rattled, members of his family gathered in the living room
   around a wicker patio couch, with a community organizer who was on the
   phone with Saint Tammany Parish Jail, where Rivera-Martinez was
   temporarily being held.

   Rachel Taber, an organizer with the Congress of Day Laborers at the New
   Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, relayed yet another round
   of unwelcome news. Visitation hours, Taber told Rivera-Martinez's wife
   and her parents, were only on Tuesdays.

   It was already Wednesday, and by the following week, Rivera-Martinez
   would be transferred to Pine Prairie, an ICE processing center about
   300 kilometers (186 miles) away from their home in Chalmette,
   Louisiana.

   Shielding her face, unsure of when she would be able to see her husband
   again, the detained immigrant's wife, Shelsea, began to weep as her
   mother, Nolvia, clenched the infant's stroller, staring into an empty
   corner.

   "Lord, help us," Nolvia said.

   Nolvia attempted to reassure her distraught daughter as best she could.
   "He's not alone," she said. "There are other migrants there."

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