Video of immigration officers stopping Black jogger is ‘unacceptable in so many ways,’ Boston Mayor Marty Walsh says

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is in the news again.    And it is a troubling story.

Bena Apreala told reporters he was jogging in West Roxbury earlier this week when three men stopped him, asked him for identification and questioned where he was from. In the video of the encounter above, one of the officers asked if he has any tattoos on his arm.

“When I saw the badge and asked them if they were ICE officers and they said yes, and I explained that I wasn’t an immigrant, I’m born and raised in Boston and that I have no idea what they’re stopping me for, they said that immigration isn’t the only thing that they investigate and proceeded to question me,” Apreala told WBUR. Mayor of Boston

Marty Walsh said that the video is “unacceptable in so many ways.” “It violates somebody’s rights just because of the color of their skin.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in an emailed statement that officers were “conducting surveillance as part of a targeted enforcement action” in West Roxbury and were looking for a previously deported Haitian man with multiple criminal convictions.

KJ