LOS ANGELES — Please attribute the following statement to Jennie Pasquarella, director of immigrants' rights at the ACLU of Southern California, in regards to a fatal crash involving a couple in Delano, California who were attempting to flee from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents:
"In recent weeks, we have received numerous reports from Kern County and other parts of the Central Valley of ICE staking out the roads farmworkers travel to get to work and pulling them over during early morning hours without any lawful basis, resulting in numerous unlawful arrests of residents.
"Reports received by the ACLU indicate that ICE is often pulling farmworkers over in unmarked vehicles. As in this case, drivers and passengers stop, after being signaled to pull over, believing the officers to be police, but only come to learn after being approached, questioned, and arrested that the officers are actually ICE.
"This incident demonstrates just how dangerous ICE’s unlawful practices are to our communities. This horrible tragedy is the direct result of ICE's inhumane tactics and the fear it provokes in hardworking people who stand to lose everything if they are deported."
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