Representative Luz Rivas, from California's 29th Federal District, recognizes that fear among immigrants has increased due to operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, even when requesting help from their congressmen.

“Many people are worried. They don't want to go to to the stores, they don't want to take their children to school,” he acknowledged.

He said that immigrants sometimes don't differentiate between congressmen and the federal government and that triggers fear.

“Sometimes they are also afraid to talk to my office, because [for them] we are all the government,” he explained.

Despite such fear, he indicated via telephone, the number of immigration-related calls in his office has increased, which is why his entire team is trained to guide people.

“Everyone on my team, anyone who answers the phone, is very informed about the rights [of immigrants], of all of us,” he explained.

Rivas warned that ICE operations are not only impacting undocumented immigrants, but any Hispanic with a Green Card or those who are Americans, because officers are engaging in “racial profiling” in their actions.

“[Federal agents] are not only trying to take immigrants who are not citizens or do not have a Green Card, They also [take] citizens, just for being Latino, it's like racial profiling," he lamented.

The Case of Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz

Representative Rivas told this newspaper that on Friday she will officially introduce the Immigration Notification for Facility Oversight and Relocation Management (INFORM) bill, to require ICE to notify the immediate family of detainees when they are transferred between detention centers.

Her proposal comes amid the case of Benjamin Guerrero Cruz, a senior at Reseda High School, which she has closely followed.

The bill will now be sent to the House Judiciary Committee, where the process to be followed will be defined.

The case of Guerrero-Cruz, from Van Nuys, is similar to that of thousands of immigrants, as he was sent by ICE to the Adelanto Detention Center in California, but was then transferred to Arizona without notifying his relatives.

Guerrero-Cruz was barely 18 years old and was walking his dog when he was detained by masked agents, in what his relatives believe was a kidnapping, because there had been no information about his whereabouts.

“This young man, Benjamin Guerrero Cruz, is a student here in my district at Resida High School,” said Representative Ruiz. “Many people, teachers and people who work at the school and many people, community leaders, are very worried. He just turned 18. He is in his last year of school and for us he is still a child, although he is 18, he is already a legal adult, but in reality he has not graduated yet.”

Rivas said that he went to the ICE facility in Adelanto this Tuesday afternoon, but was not allowed to enter, although he learned that Guerrero Cruz had been transferred to Arizona for a few hours.

The immigration officials who prevented him from carrying out his supervisory work contradicted each other about the guidelines for congressmen to enter ICE detention centers, a situation that this newspaper has also reported in New York, where the president of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), Adriano Espaillat, has also been unable to supervise immigration facilities.

“They did not let me [enter], I went and asked to enter to do that inspection and they told me that No, because they have a new policy that requires us to notify them, so they got confused, one said seven days, another said 24 hours, but they don't even know," Ruiz lamented.

She added that she learned from Guerrero Cruz's family that he had been returned to California and criticized ICE for transferring immigrants in this way, because it separates them from their families and complicates their legal defense.

Guerrero Cruz's family created a GoFundMe account to obtain funds to help pay for his legal defense.

"They treated him like a criminal, telling him while joking when they arrested him that 'thanks to him, they can drink this weekend,' laughing at the $2,500 [bonus] they had just received," the family shared on GoFundMe.

Fear increases

In an interview with this newspaper in March, Representative Rivas confessed that her mother carried her passport, as an immigrant originally from Mexico and obtained citizenship in the 1990s, but feared ICE operations.

Since then, she said Wednesday, the fear has even increased.

“She always asks me: “Should I carry my passport?” Because she’s from Mexico and became a citizen in the 90s, but she speaks English, but with an accent, like a lot of people, right?” Ruiz said. “And she thinks, well, they’re going to catch me […] when I’m at the store or shopping, she goes alone a lot of places […] she knows a lot of people who are scared.”

California and New York are part of the list of 13 states considered sanctuary by the Trump administration and are the territories where actions against undocumented immigrants are expected to increase.