**NEW Sept. 16: Boston ICE spokesman James Covington told the Current that the three men taken into custody Friday on Beach Street are “illegal aliens” who are “not facing other charges.”
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The co-owner of Lassana Landscaping in Marblehead says ICE and the FBI took three of their landscapers into custody on Beach Street Friday morning.
“They all have families,” Ali Williams told the Current on Monday. “They have been with us for a while, two for over three years, the other one new this year. All very reliable, hard-working good people who care about the quality of work that they do.”
Williams said she has gotten no information about the men’s whereabouts.
“I know the families are working with their lawyers on getting the men released. I wish I could give you more information, but we have not been given any ourselves,” she said.
Friday’s scene
Resident Sarah Fox said she was walking down Beach Street when several vehicles “hemmed in” a Lassana Landscaping truck, and men wearing FBI and police gear started screaming at the driver. Fox said she heard one agent yell, “Your identification is fake!”
James Covington with Boston’s ICE office confirmed to the Current that it was a “targeted enforcement operation” by ICE.
“It was in support of Operation Patriot,” Covington said. “A targeted enforcement operation means we were going after someone specific.”
Later, Covington said the men are “illegal aliens” who are “not facing other charges.”
Marblehead Police Chief Dennis King said, “We were not notified, nor asked to assist, but are aware of the reports of the activity.”
“This is horrible,” Fox said. “This man didn’t do anything wrong. He was on his way to work, going to make our lives easier. Now his life is changed forever. Who is going to pick up his kids after school today?”
A local GoFundMe has raised more than $3,800 as of Monday to help the families of the landscaper(s) with legal expenses. Dozens of people had donated.
Immigration attorney Diann Slavit Baylis, who lives in Marblehead, was surprised by the action Friday morning.
“Obviously this was an ambush and the people (in the Lassana truck) didn’t know their rights, and that is what ICE is counting on,” Slavit Baylis said. “To come into a suburb, it’s not to fight crime, it’s just to pick up people who are not expecting it.”
Slavit Baylis advises her clients that if they are pulled over by ICE or other federal agents to roll down their window and keep their hands on the steering wheel. Drivers are required to provide a name and address, but they are not required to say anything more.
“They (the agents) can search the car if they have probable cause, so say clearly, ‘I do not consent’ and then remain silent,” she said.
According to its website, Lassana Landscaping was launched in 2002 by Williams and her husband Lassana Diawara, who first met in a small farming village along the Niger River in Mali, West Africa, where Diawara was farming rice on his family’s land and Williams was working as an agricultural Peace Corps volunteer.
In 2001, they moved back to Williams’ hometown of Marblehead, where Diawara worked for a couple of years at Kipp’s Greenhouses and met some of his first landscaping customers.
Congressman Seth Moulton, who grew up in Marblehead, slammed the ICE action.
“Armed agents in unmarked cars surrounding a local landscaping truck and screaming at the driver in front of neighbors without even notifying Marblehead Police or the district attorney is not law enforcement — it’s intimidation,” he said.
Moulton continued, “These tactics do nothing to protect our communities; they only terrorize them. People should not have to fear being caught in the middle of an ICE operation on their way to work or school. When residents are afraid of their own government, they are less likely to cooperate with law enforcement — and that makes everyone less safe.
State Rep. Jennifer Armini said,”It is shocking and distressing to see federal agents in Marblehead. Landscapers are not criminals. They are part of our economy and, by extension, our community. The goal of today’s actions is not to keep us safe. That’s the big lie. Its goal is to destabilize our communities and terrorize individuals and their families. Marblehead has never given into tyrants, and we’re not about to start now.”
