‘You barely see people out’: How immigration raids are reshaping daily life in Puerto Rico’s Dominican enclave

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Juan Vega Paredes now has a new way of introducing himself to people he meets.

“I’m el hombre de los aguacates,” he says, with a smile on his face.

Avocado man, his new nickname, was born out of one of the worst days of his life: On January 26, Vega Paredes was arrested by federal immigration agents as he was walking to buy some avocados.

He’s one of some 500 Dominican migrants arrested in Barrio Obrero, the heart of the Dominican community in San Juan, since President Trump took office in January.

“Once I got intercepted, I thought, ‘Oh, this is because of Donald Trump,'” Vega Paredes says. “I resigned myself.”

According to ICE, about 75 percent of the people arrested on the island so far have been Dominicans. Fewer than 80 of the 500 people detained by ICE had criminal records.

Many of the arrests have happened in this poor, working-class community. These sweeps have neighbors on edge, and have transformed the once-lively barrio. Now, many restaurants are largely empty during the day and at night. Fewer people are going to church and everyone talks about immigración, the immigration agents.

All of this has driven immigration rights advocates, lawyers and some politicians to form an alliance to try to push back against Trump’s policies.

El hombre de los aguacates

Vega Paredes came to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico in 2021 in a yola, a flimsy open boat made of wood, packed with other Dominicans traversing the dangerous 80-mile stretch of ocean between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

“I came to work, prosper, and give my daughters in the Dominican Republic a better life,” Vega Paredes said.

Since then, he’s been living in the U.S. territory without legal status.

“Sometimes, when you migrate, you feel weird,” Vega Paredes said. “But when I got here I felt supported… despite my pain.”

He’s built a stable life here. He works in construction seven days a week building homes.

He rarely takes days off. But on Sunday, January 26, he was tired, so he didn’t go to work.

Instead, Vega Paredes woke up, and went to buy some avocados for his wife who was cooking at home. While walking down one of Barrio Obrero’s streets, he was surrounded by immigration agents.

Vega Paredes is married to a U.S. citizen and he doesn’t have a criminal record. But he’s been living on the island illegally and immigration agents arrested him. He spent a few weeks at the troubled Krome Detention Center in Miami, a place some immigrants detained there have described as “hell on earth.”

Vega Paredes said he remembers men there crying in fear, uncertain about what was coming next.

“I kept telling one of them, ‘be brave,'” Vega Paredes recalled saying. “But inside I was about to break down.”

Vega Paredes was later relocated to a federal prison in Miami, and eventually released on a $10,000 immigration bond. His next ICE hearing is in July. It’s unclear what will happen next. The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to questions from NPR about the process. 

On a recent hot day, Vega Paredes walked by the spot where he was arrested and stood under a beautiful tree with lilac flowers. A woman, Digna Gómez, approached him.

“Do you remember a man who was arrested right here?” he asked her.

Gómez did remember.

“I’m the famous hombre de los aguacates,” he told the woman.

Gomez, who lives in the house with the beautiful tree, is also Dominican. She’s in the U.S. territory legally, but is still scared.

She says she knows of many Dominicans picked up by ICE, including the barber who hid in a dumpster, or the man known as El Pescador, the fisherman who was arrested with his son.

“Now we have to carry our immigration documents at all times because you never know when you might get picked up,” she said.

Alliances to push back 

“Barrio Obrero is being stigmatized as a community with these persistent interventions at all hours,” said Annette Martínez-Orabona, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Puerto Rico. The group is leading efforts to push back against the enforcement operations in immigrant communities on the island.

She said immigration raids are not new in Puerto Rico, but this time they are different.

“There’s no reason for the government to repeat the raids in the same streets, in front of the same churches, in front of the same plaza,” Martínez-Orabona said. “No reason, besides wanting to criminalize that community.”

In an interview with NPR, Rebecca González-Ramos, ICE’s top investigator in Puerto Rico, dismissed the allegations of discrimination.

“There’s been people detained from all sorts of countries. It’s not just Dominicans,” González-Ramos said. “Most of them have been Dominicans because they are the highest population here from a foreign country.”

In response to the detentions, the ACLU of Puerto Rico is spearheading an alliance between lawyers and the medical guild, whose members are already visiting patients at their homes, since many are scared and not going out to receive medical care.

“We are not going to violate the law, or the President’s orders,” Dr. Carlos Díaz Vélez, the president of the Association of Physicians and Surgeons of Puerto Rico, said. “But we want to save people’s health, safety, and give access to health care.”

Churches in Barrio Obrero, like the San Pablo Methodist Church, are also helping migrants with food, and access to legal aid.

A small tree-lined plaza is across the street from the Methodist church. Plaza Antonio R. Barceló is nestled between homes, bars like El Cibao and Arriba El Son, and places for migrants to send money back to the Dominican Republic.

It’s the heart of Barrio Obrero, the place where people meet and play dominoes, and take breaks.

Susana Rosario, 61, sits on a bench there every day. She’s Dominican and has a green card now, but she used to live here without legal status. She works for the city of San Juan as a street sweeper and Barrio Obrero is part of her route.

“You barely see people out,” Rosario said.

She said she has mixed feelings about Trump’s immigration policies.

She wants him to remove “those who are getting drunk or doing bad things,” but not the people who are hard workers, she says.

Rosario lives about three miles from the center of Barrio Obrero.

A few days later, after her first encounter with NPR, we found her crying on a bench.

Her two Dominican neighbors — good kids, as she describes them — were just picked up by ICE at a construction site nearby.