Trapped in the System: ICE Check-ins Become Catch-22 for Immigrants BY SARAH BETANCOURT
BOSTON – Margarita fled Honduras for the United States in 2014, leaving behind gender-based violence from an uncle who stalked her and threatened her physically.
check-ins, a regular occurrence for immigrants across the country. For years, immigrants in removal proceedings have had to check in with ICE at least once per year— if they don’t attend, a warrant for their “I was afraid of what he would do to me, and arrest can be issued, and ICE can proceed my daughters,” she said. Margarita asked to with deportation. only use her first name for this story out of fear of repercussions in Honduras. In March, Margarita went to a check-in and had an electronic monitor attached to her Since arriving in Boston, she’s had a U.S.- ankle for GPS monitoring—despite having born daughter, now nine, and spends her never committed any criminal offense, time working in food preparation and as she said. a janitor in local restaurants. What should be a safe haven for her has become an Margarita tried to gain asylum many years unsteady reality under the second Trump ago, but had the case denied, and was only administration, which is actively searching told by her former immigration lawyer more for immigrants to detain and deport as a part than six months after the denial—which of mass deportation policies. meant she couldn’t appeal. Since then, she’s been in removal proceedings, but hasn’t Margarita reports to U.S. been given a specific date to self-deport. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Burlington, With news of community members being Massachusetts for detained and deported and her future check-ins looming before her, she is fearful.
“I’m scared because the problems that I came here with still exist in Honduras,” she said. “Here with my two jobs, I pay for my rent, what we need, food—we don’t have a lot, but we have what is necessary.”
Montes recounted one specific instance this winter when a Salvadoran mother with a nine-year-old went to an ICE check-in in Burlington. She was detained the same day and deported the next day to El Salvador. The Department of Homeland Security pushed back on the concerns of its ICE agents detaining people at check-in appointments “ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) exists to ensure compliance with release conditions. All illegal aliens are afforded due process,” a DHS spokesperson wrote in a message. The unnamed spokesperson said those who are arrested have “executable final orders of removal by an immigration judge,” and will not have complied with self-deportation.
When she goes to the appointments, Margarita said she takes several buses to Burlington, traveling almost two hours each way. She waits in a room, often bringing her youngest daughter out of fear of separation, and signs a piece of paper saying she has been compliant by physically presenting herself at the Burlington, MA Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office. The appointments often mean missing full days of work, since she doesn’t know how long she will be there for. “If you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that Patricia Montes is the executive director is precisely what will happen,” the statement of Centro Presente, a nonprofit immigrant continued. DHS claims that under the Biden rights organization that has been supporting administration, thousands of undocumented Margarita. The group’s members have gone immigrants, including “violent criminals with to her ICE check-ins, reached out to elected final orders of removal were on ATD and leaders about her case, and are seeking allowed to roam our communities.” ISAP is to meet with Governor Maura Healey part of ICE’s “ATD” program, which refers to about Margarita’s case and others like it. its “Alternatives to Detention” programs— which use tracking technologies such as the “She’s going to be in a country that is ankle monitor that Margarita has to wear. dangerous for women and girls, you know? Honduras has one of the highest levels of Montes said her organization has fielded many calls and messages from immigrant femicides,” said Montes. single mothers who have no criminal records, Margarita is not alone in her apprehension of who are worried about being deported, and going to a check-in. While Centro Presente have US citizen children, like Margarita. has long advised its members to go to their Continues on page 2. check-ins and be compliant with the law, the group is aware of the increased difficulty of This article was originally published in June 2025 by HorizonMass and is syndicated the current situation. “Because of this political environment, a lot of our clients, women and girls—they are afraid to go to court, they’re afraid to go to the ICE check-ins because they fear that they are going to be detained,” said Montes.
by the MassWire news service of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.
PAGE LAYOUTS:
Phoebe Delmonte: p.1,4,5 Ruby Garcia: p.2,7 Akbota Saudabayeva: p.3 Adrian Alvarez: p.6,8