A spokesman for the Dominican Committee for Human Rights of Puerto Rico, José Rodríguez, accused the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) of carrying out its raids in Puerto Rico on racially motivated grounds. Rodríguez charged that the federal operations are taking place only in poor neighborhoods and targeting Black people. He said that, in his view, these racial motives have led ICE to arrest even people born in Puerto Rico without any cause and to make them disappear from the system immediately.
Rodríguez’s comments came after ICE officers staged what the committee described as a violent intervention in Río Piedras, San Juan, where they threatened a citizen who was legally recording them with spraying her with pepper spray.