Day After ICE Drama, Ansonia Woman Says She Is Being Followed

Photo by Eugene Driscoll

If you approached this car off North Main Street Friday in Ansonia, the driver appeared to capture your image on video.

ANSONIA — The wife of a man wanted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said someone spent Friday following her around and videotaping her.

She assumes the vehicle belongs to ICE.

“I’m a U.S. citizen. Why are they harassing me and my family?” Shaundrece Beckford asked outside her Ansonia residence at about 4 p.m.

Her husband was not with her.

As she made her comments, a person sat in a dark-colored SUV with tinted side windows across the street.

When approached by a reporter requesting to take a photo, the person in the car appeared to be using a cell phone to video anyone near the vehicle (see image above).

But the vehicle didn’t have any easily-recognizable markings identifying where it was from. It had Connecticut plates.

Beckford husband is 23-year-old Domar Shearer, who made headlines when he remained in a public defender’s office for some seven hours Thursday to avoid five ICE agents waiting to take him into custody. ICE left the building 5 p.m. Thursday.

Beckford, a server at a restaurant, is from Jamaica and overstayed a visa. He got on ICE​’s radar after he was arrested in Ansonia for a dispute that resulted in several misdemeanor charges, including third-degree assault.

He was not with Beckford Friday, and no one said where he was.

Beckford said she spotted the vehicle three times as she ran errands in Ansonia Friday. She said she finally confronted the driver, a woman, who confirmed she was following Beckford.

A woman named CJ from Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA) checked-in with Beckford Friday. CJ and others from ULA took cell phone photos of the dark SUV and its driver.

ULA is a social justice organization made up of immigrants in the Greater New Haven area, according to the group’s website. They helped Beckford’s husband get out of Derby Thursday evening after ICE left the court house.

Beckford said she has been talking to a lawyer about her husband’s local criminal case, but was still unsure about how the family would deal with her husband’s immigration problem.

She wanted whomever was in the truck to leave alone.

“They’re following my children, also. We’re afraid,” she said.

Earlier Friday, a spokesman for ICE​’s Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Boston said the agents at Derby court had a right to be there.

“ICE ERO officers have been provided broad at-large arrest authority by Congress and may lawfully arrest removable aliens in courthouses, which is often necessitated by local policies that prevent law enforcement from cooperating with ICE efforts to arrange for a safe and orderly transfer of custody in the setting of a state or county prison or jail and put political rhetoric before public safety,” the statement said.

ULA activists said Thursday the attempt to capture Shearer violated new provisions of Connecticut’s TRUST Act, which limits local and state cooperation with ICE.

ICE-ERO in Boston Friday also contradicted a statement issued by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who indicated ICE agents left at the request of the state’s Chief Court Administrator, a move the Senator strongly supported.

But ICE-ERO said they left because of safety concerns.

“In this case, when it appeared that the activists’ disruptive activities created an unsafe environment, ICE officers departed. It is ironic that activists and even elected officials want to see policies in place to keep ICE out of courthouses, while caring little for laws enacted by Congress to keep criminal aliens out of our country.

“Despite attempts to prevent ICE officers from doing their jobs, ICE will continue to carry out its mission to uphold public safety and enforce immigration law, and consider carefully whether to refer those who obstruct our lawful enforcement efforts for criminal prosecution.”

The activists did not interfere with the ICE-ERO agents Thursday. The two groups ignored each other for most of the day, as reported Thursday.

The Valley Indy reached out to ICE-ERO for clarification.

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