Rally in Boston for detained immigrants

[Ian David]

BOSTON -- Marta Aguilera-Espineda was in a line with other immigrants bound for a Texas detention center when she screamed out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers that she could not leave her infant daughter.

As she sobbed in the line, an immigration officer removed her, she said. Twenty-three hours after officers descended on the New Bedford factory where she worked on an assembly line -- some jumping out of helicopters, others firing shots into the air, she said -- Aguilera-Espineda returned to the baby sitter minding her daughter, Kimberly, since she left for work the day before.

Aguilera-Espineda was rounded up with the 361 mostly Central American immigrants following the raid March 6 at a Michael Bianco Inc. factory that makes equipment and apparel for the U.S. military.

She worked at the plant for three years after making her way to the U.S. from Honduras. She said Tuesday she fears many of her co-workers with young children were not as lucky -- they remained in the long line of immigrants bound for Texas.

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Stearns has asked the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, which has been working to see that care is in place for detainees' children, and ICE, to report to him on any unresolved cases involving detainees who are sole caregivers of minor children. A DSS spokeswoman said the agency's report would be filed early Wednesday. Raimondi said the federal government has told the judge it knows of no unresolved cases involving sole caregivers of minor children.

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