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Four people, including Brandeis professor and local minister, arrested outside Burlington ICE facility
The group said they were attempting to deliver "care packages" to immigrant detainees inside the ICE office in Burlington.
Four people, including a minister and a local professor, were arrested Tuesday as they attempted to deliver “care packages” to detainees at the ICE facility in Burlington.
The group, which also included another minister who documented the incident on social media, was protesting both the specific detainment of immigrants at the Burlington facility and the larger mass deportation effort being undertaken by the Trump administration.
Fred Small, Eric Segal, Roger Rosen, and Sabine Von Mering were charged with disturbing the peace and trespassing, according to Burlington Police Chief Thomas Browne. They were arraigned in Woburn District Court Tuesday afternoon.
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Small is a minister for climate justice at Arlington Street Church in Boston. Von Mering is the director of the Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis University.
The facility, which is a regional field office for ICE agents operating throughout much of New England, is not a detainment center. But with ICE arrests spiking this year, detainees have increasingly been held overnight there before being moved to other ICE facilities.
Advocates and people who have been detained inside the building have repeatedly sounded the alarm this year about the conditions inside. Federal officials maintain that the conditions are more than adequate for temporary stays, and that detainees are moved on to more suitable facilities in a timely manner.
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ICE spokespeople did not return requests for comment Wednesday.
The arrests were documented in a series of videos posted to Facebook by Rev. Sarah Lusche of Old Cambridge Baptist Church. Quoting scripture, Lusche described how the packages were meant to provide comfort during the holiday season. The activists are from different faith backgrounds, she said, but are united in their opposition to ICE’s policies.
“The individuals detained in this facility and those across this country who have been swept up in this administration’s reign of immigration terror have not been given the due process that is guaranteed under the Constitution and they are being held in cruel and unusual conditions,” Lusche said in one video. “This is torture.”
The packages contained juice, food, warm hats, bedrolls, and menstrual products, according to Lusche. She mentioned media reports about detainees being forced to sleep on concrete floors and women being denied access to menstrual products.
Another video shows Burlington police officers interacting with the four activists as they stand in front of the facility’s front doors. An officer can be heard asking the group to move to another area outside the facility, farther away from the doors. When the group refuses to move, the officer informs them that they could be arrested.
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In a third video, Lusche read personal statements from the people being arrested as she documented officers placing them in handcuffs and leading them into police vehicles.
Small said in his statement that Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested by ICE less than a mile from his home earlier this year.
“Jesus told us to welcome the stranger. Instead, ICE is brutalizing our neighbors with wanton cruelty,” he said.
This year, the Trump administration has conducted two major immigration enforcement operations in Massachusetts, along with other notable raids like one at a car wash in Allston. Despite insisting that ICE agents are prioritizing “the worst of the worst,” recent reporting from The New York Times shows that 63% of those detained during the most recent major operation did not have any criminal charges.
ICE is also increasingly using Hanscom Field in Bedford to transport detainees, prompting local outrage. Gov. Maura Healey recently demanded that ICE stop using Hanscom.
In Burlington, demonstrators have consistently gathered outside the ICE facility to protest. Burlington police maintain a regular presence there, and most issues that arise are minor, Browne said. The protesters are generally respectful of police and comply with orders to gather in certain areas.
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A captain and a lieutenant within the Burlington Police Department have been assigned to oversee any issues regarding the ICE facility, Browne said. They maintain regular channels of communication with leaders of the protest groups in order to maintain order. The department is focused on protecting anyone’s right to protest, regardless of their political affiliation, he said.
Prominent Democrats are also focusing on the Burlington facility. Rep. Seth Moulton toured the facility alongside Rep. Jake Auchincloss over the summer, after a Milford teen who was arrested on his way to volleyball practice spent six nights detained there.
Moulton conducted another oversight visit earlier this month, as did Sen. Ed Markey. Moulton is running against Markey in a primary election next year.
“The facilities in there are completely inadequate and inhumane for anyone to be staying here for an extended length of time,” Moulton said after his visit. He was told by ICE that detainees are being moved through the facility more quickly now than they were earlier this year, but raised concerns about how that may be limiting the ability for detainees to get legal representation.
After his own tour, Markey said that ICE officials displayed little transparency during his interactions with them.
“What I saw made clear that this facility is not designed to safely house individuals overnight. The Burlington field office is a bleak, frigid facility where no one deserves to be held,” Markey said.
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With the Trump administration showing no signs of slowing immigration enforcement, the Burlington facility stands to remain a continued area of focus for protesters like those arrested this week.
Rosen said that ICE operations are “an outrage to human decency and the rule of law” in his statement.
“The blatant physical and emotional cruelty of ICE operations demands that we step outside our comfort zone to object,” he said. “Our attempt to deliver these necessities to our immigrant brothers and sisters is a recognition of their humanity and their right to be treated with kindness and respect.”
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