U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived in Champaign-Urbana at the beginning of March and began to conduct searches for undocumented immigrants, Brian Dolinar said.  

Dolinar, the author of Truthout and activist at the Independent Media Center in Champaign, has documented more than 100 incidents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since August of 2015.

One undocumented immigrant was found and taken in by ICE at the parking lot near Siam Terrace, a restaurant in downtown Urbana, and numerous others are often taken in as “collateral,” Dolinar said. Detainees are then taken to the ICE office in St. Louis and then to the Pulaski County Detention Center in Ullin, Illinois, he said.

The Fiscal Year 2017 ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Report summarizes the activities of ICE and Enforcement and Removal Operations in the 2017 fiscal year.

“ERO identifies, arrests and removes aliens who present a danger to national security or a threat to public safety, or who otherwise undermine border control and the integrity of the United States immigration system,” according to the report.

The report cites a 30 percent increase in administrative arrests from the fiscal year of 2016 to 2017.

Dolinar said ICE tracks the Champaign County Courthouse website and arrests undocumented individuals who have DUI offenses.

“About 60 percent of (those taken in by ICE) have DUIs,” he said. “Others have other criminal convictions or are involved in domestic cases.”

Dolinar said ICE agents usually arrive in unmarked cars wearing street clothes and stay in the area for two to three days. They inform the Public Safety Communications Center for Champaign County, or METCAD 9-1-1, before arriving to prevent conflicts with local police searches of undocumented immigrants assumed to be missing.

Gioconda Perez, director of La Casa Cultural Latina said ICE coming to town is not new.

“It might distress some of the students but I think it would distress anybody,” Perez said.

In the case that ICE agents are in the area, Perez said La Casa works primarily to make sure students are aware of the resources available to them such as counseling, but cannot give legal advice. La Casa also works to educate others of these resources in order to refer undocumented students to them.

“We always have our doors open,” Perez said.

Kevin Garcia, freshman in LAS and Business and vice president of Illinois Coalition Assisting Undocumented Students’ Education, said in an email there is not much they can do about immigration raids.

I-CAUSE helps keep undocumented students educated on their statuses and delivers ally training in conjunction with La Casa, where they educate staff, faculty and other students of what it means to be an undocumented student, Garcia said.

“The only thing we would be able to do is share the information (with) the community on when these raids would be taking place,” he said. “As we are not legal attorneys, neither we nor La Casa give legal advice. I-CAUSE’s mission is simply to commit to service and advocacy working in solidarity with the undocumented community.”

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Correction: A previous version of this article stated that an undocumented immigrant was detained by ICE agents at Siam Terrace. The article also misstated the name of Independent Media Center as Independent Media Company. The Daily Illini regrets these errors.