Protest emerges at Ferndale facility after ICE reportedly detains Whatcom County activist
A crowd gathered outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) center in Ferndale around 10 a.m. Tuesday to protest the detainment of Alfredo (Lelo) Juarez Zeferino. More than 100 people had gathered outside on the road outside the facility in protest by 2 p.m.
Zeferino was arrested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on his way to work around 7:20 a.m. Tuesday, according to Liz Darrow, Participatory Democracy Program Coordinator for Community to Community Development (C2C).
As of Tuesday afternoon, federal authorities had not publicly stated why Zeferino was detained. He was born in Mexico, and The Herald was unable to confirm his immigration status Tuesday.
'We suspect it was because of his political action that he was detained,' Darrow said during an interview with The Herald at the protest site.
Zeferino has been politically active for many years, and he has been volunteering his time with C2C as an immigrant rights organizer. He also helped form the Independent Democratic farmworker union Familias Unidas por la Justica, and he served on the city of Bellingham's Immigration Advisory Committee until it was dissolved last October. He also represents C2C on the Farmer Stakeholder Group of the National Food Chain Workers Alliance, The National Dignity Campaign and has testified before state house and senate hearings on behalf of the Farmwork Tribunal, according to a news release from C2C.
He is also a recipient of the Youth Peacemaker Award in 2024 from the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center.
'I know Lelo. We were just together in Olympia for an advocacy day,' said protester and C2C volunteer Sylvia Cohen. 'He is an amazing organizer and advocate who makes our community better, and I woke up this morning to a text that he had been detained.'
Protesters knew Zeferino was still in custody at the ICE office in Ferndale at 5200 Industrial Place around 1 p.m. because he had used his lone phone call to confirm. However, it is unknown if ICE has transported him since, as most immigration detainees are taken to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.
It would not be Zeferino's first time in the Tacoma Northwest Detention Center. He was detained there as a 15-year-old in 2015 after the Bellingham Police officers stopped him for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. Officers were unable to identify Zeferino at the time, as he did not have a license, and called the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Zeferino issued a racial bias complaint against the Bellingham Police Department as a result, and the case was settled in 2021.
'We want him to be released, and we want to send a strong message that detaining people for political reasons is not OK,' Darrow said.
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