Speaking Thursday on Boston Public Radio, former Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral sharply criticized the Tuesday stop by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials of a Black jogger in his West Roxbury neighborhood.
Video of the incident spread quickly on social media this week. Bena Apreala, a local real estate agent, was stopped for questioning on Tuesday by three men later identified as ICE agents who were searching for, the department said in a statement, a "previously deported Haitian national." Apreala was born and raised in Boston.
Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell told GBH News Wednesday that the incident was “obviously” illegal, and “blatant racial profiling.”
Cabral explained that new federal rules permit ICE officials to detain and deport individuals largely at their own discretion. "The only people who will review whether or not you should be deported will be ICE attorneys, and if they can establish that the order of deportation is lawful, you can be deported," she said, noting that these officers “could have simply taken him off the street."
She also said criticisms of the ensuing outrage show a skewed perception of what a fair justice system ought to look like.
“People say ‘At least you weren’t hurt.’ … But the threshold [for injustice] is supposed to be taking away someone’s liberty, unlawfully or wrongfully. And we’re so far past that point that we immediately go to serious bodily injury or death.”
“It shows you how far this country has moved away from constitutional rights for all of its citizens,” she added.
