About 150 at Cottage Grove vigil hear about effects of ICE arrests

A crowd of about 150 gathered in Cottage Grove on Monday, Nov. 10, to show support at a candlelight vigil for those affected by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity last week.

Cottage Grove Friends of Democracy organized the event.

Abelio Carrillo, with the Rural Organizing Project, told the crowd at Coiner Park of nine ICE detentions in Cottage Grove last Wednesday.

“They are fathers, breadwinners and family members, and the agents descended before daybreak to catch people heading to work to support their families,” Carrillo said.

The statewide Rural Organizing Project has a main office in Cottage Grove for its leadership training. It seeks to “advance democracy and defend human dignity,” according to the organization’s website, which now includes a fundraiser to support families in Lane County affected by the recent ICE detentions.

Carrillo said his organization continues to hear from other community members.

“They’re constantly calling us, asking us, ‘Is it safe to send my kids to school?’ That’s not right, that shouldn’t be happening,” said Carrillo.

ICE agents last Wednesday also detained for a time Juanita Avila, a local business owner.

Avila’s daughter, Emely, told the crowd Monday about her mother’s ordeal. In an interview last week with Lookout Eugene-Springfield, Avila said she was pulled over, yanked from her minivan and then thrown to the street despite having permanent resident status.

Videos shared on social media showed Avila on the ground, yelling, and then her daughter arriving and frantically telling ICE officers of her mother’s legal status.

“My mother was not stopped because they were looking for a specific person, not because they had a warrant and not because they had reasonable suspicion, but because she was Latina and driving a van,” Emely Agustin said Monday.

Agustin told the crowd her mother was not interfering with ICE but “simply driving.”

“They were stopping people of color driving to work in vans and trucks. They didn’t identify themselves as ‘Immigration’ until after they threw her to the ground and were kneeling on top of her, putting her in handcuffs,” Agustin said. 

Her mother actually had her “green card” in her pocket, but “they never once asked for it or her ID,” Agustin said. Permanent resident status, often referred to as having a “green card,” allows a person to live and work in the United States, though they are not U.S. citizens.

“After I insisted she was a legal resident, even then, they kept asking me if it was valid, expired or even real … They were trying to belittle me into giving up trying to get her released,” Agustin said.

“Every time we go out and we see a semi-suspicious vehicle, our hearts start racing. However, we consider ourselves lucky to be able to still be together as a family while others are separated and crying for the chance to see their loved ones again,” Agustin said, standing next to her mother.

Juanita Avila spoke briefly to thank the crowd for showing support and also her daughter.

“Because if she wasn’t there that day, they would have taken me, and I have a little one at home,” Avila said.

U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle also addressed the crowd.

“Juanita, we know, is part of our community. She is the best of the best, and never got the opportunity to show her ‘Green Card,’ which she had with her. Thank goodness, her daughter was there,” said Hoyle, a Democrat who represents the 4th Congressional District, which includes Cottage Grove. 

She said her office would host “Know Your Rights” sessions to explain the legal rights of those stopped by ICE or otherwise encountering ICE agents.

“What’s happening in Cottage Grove is happening all around the country, and it is up to us to not back down. And it is scary, but it is less scary for us than it is for our immigrant neighbors,” Hoyle said.

In the mostly Anglo crowd, Chris Stuehm, 33, said he came to the vigil to show he doesn’t agree with the ICE tactics. A Cottage Grove resident, he said he was surprised to hear about the ICE arrests in his community.

“This is America,” Stuehm said, adding that people should feel welcome and have a path to citizenship.

“We shouldn’t just be taking people by the way they look, and arresting them and finding out that they’re legal and there’s no warrant for them, to let them go. What’s next?”

Ruth Seeger, 65, said she traveled from Eugene to attend the candlelight vigil after hearing from friends in Cottage Grove about the event.

Asked her thoughts on the ICE enforcement activity, Seeger said, “If it can happen in rural Cottage Grove, then no one is really safe.”

Carrillo last week told Lookout Eugene-Springfield that some of those detained by ICE in Cottage Grove had pending asylum applications, and he spoke to the crowd on Monday about seeking asylum as a “human right.”

The asylum application process is for those seeking protection in the United States because they fear persecution in their home countries.

“People have a right to escape violent regimes and criminal gangs in their lives and to seek safety in another country,” said Carrillo, who told the crowd he graduated from high school in 2019 after arriving in the United States from Guatemala as a teenager. His family went through the asylum process, he said.

Questions from Lookout Eugene-Springfield to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson about enforcement activity in Cottage Grove and Eugene were not answered Monday.

Last week, Carrillo said he’d spoken with witnesses or family members about seven people taken by ICE in Cottage Grove, all migrants from Guatemala. In an interview Monday, Carrillo said he learned from the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition of two additional ICE detentions in Cottage Grove but had not spoken with any family members of those two detainees.