WEST UNION, S.C. – Community groups, faith leaders, and immigrant rights organizations are demanding answers and accountability after a June 18 immigration enforcement action at Puerto Nuevo, a popular Mexican restaurant in Oconee County.
A new community letter calls for an end to the county’s collaboration agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which Sheriff Mike Crenshaw signed in March of this year. The community letter is available below in English and Spanish.
The following quotes are from individuals who signed the statement.
“The operation at the Puerto Nuevo not only targeted a restaurant. It targeted a whole community — the Hispanic community. A community that lives, works, and raises their children in a town that they call home in which they no longer feel safe," said Dulce López, Immigrant Rights Advocacy Strategist at the ACLU of South Carolina. "The sheriff’s decision to sign onto 287(g) despite overwhelming opposition shows just how out of touch local leadership is with the Hispanic community, and we call on the sheriff to end this counterproductive agreement now.”
“As a pastor and community leader, I cannot stay silent when fear replaces trust and dignity is traded for suspicion. No system that values families should use them as collateral,” said Rev. Ramfis Moulier, Iglesia Foothills Campus Pastor and National Bishop of Defenders of the Christian Faith Movement. “Our faith calls us to protect the vulnerable, not criminalize them. We must demand transparency, accountability, and a commitment to justice that sees every person—documented or not—as fully human and worthy of compassion. I personally warned law enforcement officers that actions like these would deepen fear and fracture our community. Sadly, those warnings were dismissed, and now we are living the consequences.”
“When these raids happen, like they did last month in Oconee County and Charleston County, public officials and the media push a narrative that it is about stopping crime or even preventing trafficking. However, all these charges and narratives should be looked upon with suspicion, given the lack of transparency by ICE and their proclivity to be dishonest about their actions,” said Will McCorkle, an organizer with the Charleston Immigrant Coalition. “Even in the case that certain criminal elements are apprehended, what is often overlooked are the innocent people who are also detained and deported as part of the raids. With an immigration regime under Trump that is sending people to torture in South Sudan, horrendous prisons in El Salvador, and now to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in Florida, local officials should be wary of working with ICE when it means that individuals caught up in these raids could face horrific human rights abuses."
Law enforcement officials have attempted to portray the June 18 incident at Puerto Nuevo as a human trafficking investigation, but to date no trafficking-related charges have been announced against any of the individuals arrested. Most of the 10 people arrested were not charged with any criminal offense, and most arrestees appear to have been transferred into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Today’s statement highlights the need for greater transparency and responsiveness from local police. The signers of the statement also demand that Oconee County terminate its 287(g) Warrant Service Officer agreement, which obligates local sheriff’s deputies to carry out the work of ICE. Similar agreements across the country have led to racial profiling, erosion of public trust, and massive expenditures. One such agreement in Charleston County was previously reported to cost $4 million per year.
For more information about the costs, impacts, and rapid spread of 287(g) agreements in South Carolina, see our blog post, “Are your local police collaborating with ICE?”
