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Some in Chelsea brace for deportations, while officials try to calm fears

Workers at La Colaborativa in Chelsea install tinted window film on a doorway for security. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Workers at La Colaborativa in Chelsea install tinted window film on a doorway for security. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Updated January 24, 2025 at 18:13 PM ET

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were spotted in Chelsea this week, triggering fears in the Latino majority community of an emboldened era of enforcement under the Trump administration.

Gladys Vega, head of the Chelsea nonprofit La Colaborativa, said many immigrants are on high alert after agents gathered in the local Market Basket grocery parking lot on Wednesday. The next day, Vega was preparing to meet with Chelsea’s police chief, school superintendent, City Council president and other officials to share their concerns.

“Trump gets elected and gets sworn in on Monday, talks about all these executive orders. And then you have a group of ICE agents right on Market Basket, a very large place of immigrants and many people that come from other cities and towns to shop there,” she said. “They immediately thought that there was a huge raid there.”

Workers from La Colaborativa taped “no trespassing” signs to the nonprofit’s front doors and installed window tints to prevent outsiders from peering in.

Federal agents this week also made arrests in the Boston Area, first reported by an embedded Fox News crew, sending reports swirling around social media about a more aggressive approach towards immigration enforcement. Some lawyers cautioned that recent arrests were the same type seen during prior administrations.

“But now ICE is making a point about being loud and visible,”said Heather Arroyo, an immigration lawyer with the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, in an email. “It is designed to cause chaos, fear, and terror.”

Tom Hodgson, former Bristol County Sheriff and chairman of the Trump campaign in Massachusetts, applauded ICE for making its presence known in Chelsea.

“Nobody should be afraid unless they’ve done something wrong,” Hodgson said. “And the fact that ICE is present will send a clear message that — particularly for the criminal illegal aliens that are here — that [ICE is] ready to do whatever they have to do to keep our community safe.”

Vega said she welcomes law enforcement targeting serious criminals. But she’s concerned about regular working people getting scooped up.

“We want criminals that have committed a rape, that have committed something severe, out of our city and out of our nation,” Vega said. “But we don’t want a regular person that doesn’t have papers — that only have come to America to work and look for the dreams that you and I are looking for — to be deported.”

People’s fears were compounded when the Department of Homeland Security announced ICE agents would no longer stay out of so-called protected areas, such as schools and churches.

A mother of two who visited La Colaborativa on Thursday said she kept her kids home from school this week because of all the uncertainty. The woman explained that she’s afraid of ICE entering the school and arresting her daughter. WBUR is not identifying the woman because she fears immigration status puts her at risk.

Officials are trying to assuage these types of fears. Chelsea’s school superintendent, Almi Abeyta, told WBUR her office has received guidance from the state attorney general.

“We don’t give out student information. And we are very firm about that,” Abeyta said. “We are following the procedures that we always follow. The advice from the attorney general is that no one can come and talk to a student or anyone without a warrant, without a subpoena.”

After Thursday’s meeting at La Colaborativa, Chelsea city manager Fidel Maltez posted a statement online saying Chelsea police do not act as ICE agents, and that the department “only communicates with ICE in cases involving serious criminal offenses, such as violent crimes, consistent with state law and departmental policy.”

Vega said a network of Boston Area immigration advocates are developing an emergency plan to put in place in the case of large scale immigration raids.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2025 WBUR

Jesús Marrero Suárez
Simón Rios