The Evansville Immigrant Welcome & Resource Center says 12 people were detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement across Evansville and Henderson Monday through Wednesday.
Reached by phone Friday, Ely Sena-Martin, the executive director of the IWRC, said that at least one person taken into custody was from Henderson.
Information shared later in the day, however, shows that the man lived in Owensboro but was taken into custody in Henderson.
Sena-Martin did not have information as to where the person in Henderson was apprehended.
The IWRC sent out a press release Friday to speak out and to connect people to resources needed, including lawyers that might represent them. Sena-Martin said that due process is for everyone on American soil, not only citizens.
“Our country’s legal protections apply to everyone,” she said in a prepared statement. “When they are bypassed for some, it puts all of us at risk.”
The release also said that some who were detained were not “given access to legal representation or the chance to contact family members while in custody.”
The IWRC has also received reports from detainees’ families of individuals being pressured to sign deportation orders without access to legal counsel, said the release.
None of the detentions involved local police or sheriff departments, said the IWRC.
Several individuals were transported to Hopkins County Jail in Kentucky.
“We are deeply concerned that individuals were not given access to legal representation or the chance to contact family members while in custody,” Sena-Martin said.
For more information, visit www.evvimmigrantwelcomecenter.com.
