Delray Beach Immigration Office: Migrants ‘Tricked’ into Detention, Families Protest

One mother explained, “They told us to come at 2 o’clock to fix something on our phone for the application they monitor us with, but that was a lie.”

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Several South Florida residents are sharing that their family members, who had arrived for their regularly scheduled appointments with immigration officers, were unexpectedly detained on Monday in Delray Beach. Outside the BI Incorporated office in Delray Beach, which is located in a parking lot, nearly a dozen people were seen standing. BI Incorporated, as stated on its website, partners with the Department of Homeland Security to run the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), an alternative to detention.

Outside the immigration supervision office in Delray Beach, several worried friends and family members shared their concerns with us, though they requested to remain anonymous. One woman recounted how her cousin had been asked to come in at 8 a.m. for what they believed would be a standard, routine appointment.

Family members gathered outside the immigration supervision office in Delray Beach shared their distress with NBC6, speaking anonymously out of concern for their loved ones.

One woman explained that her cousin had been asked to attend a routine check-in appointment at 8 a.m., just as he had done many times before. However, this time was different. He was told to come in for a simple appointment, but he was unexpectedly detained instead. The woman emphasized that her cousin had always followed the proper procedures—he had all his documents in order and was required to check in regularly with immigration through phone calls until his court date, where a decision would be made about his status. The family had no reason to believe anything out of the ordinary would occur during this check-in.

When hours passed without any word from him, the woman went to the office to see what had happened. It was only when she saw a photo and videos of several individuals, including her cousin, being led away in zip ties and placed into SUVs that she realized her relative had been detained. She expressed her deep distress, saying, “These people aren’t bad people, these people aren’t criminals,” adding that her cousin had never been to jail.

Her cousin wasn’t the only one affected. Another woman shared that her son had been detained as well. She said that he had been told to come to the office at 2 p.m. to fix an issue with the phone application used for immigration supervision, but that turned out to be a false reason for his visit. Her son, now 30, had come to the United States from Venezuela when he was just 6 years old. She expressed her frustration, saying they were never given the chance to be informed about a potential deportation order. “They didn’t give us the opportunity to at least tell us, ‘Look, you have a deportation order, we want you to be removed by February,’” she said. “They just lied to him.”

NBC6 reached out to BI Incorporated for a comment, but the company directed them to their federal partners. Garrett Ripa, the acting assistant director for field operations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), addressed the families’ claims, denying that ICE was using tactics such as luring people to appointments under false pretenses. He asserted that their actions on Monday were consistent with their usual operations, just conducted with more federal support. He added that ICE would only detain or deport individuals with a final order in place.

William Botsch, a volunteer with the Miramar Circle of Protection, which assists individuals at the Miramar ICE facility, commented that while it’s not routine practice, it’s not unheard of for people to be detained during check-ins. He expressed concern that such actions could become more common, as they make it easier for immigration officials to meet arrest quotas. Botsch emphasized the importance of not letting fear deter people from reporting to immigration officials, as avoiding check-ins could lead to more serious consequences.

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