Norristown immigrant community, allies shaken after ICE raid at supermarket

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On Wednesday night, dozens of immigrant community members and allies held a vigil in the parking lot of the Super Gigante grocery store in Norristown, where earlier that day immigration enforcement officers detained at least 14 people.

“Es triste ver que ellos salieron al trabajo no como criminales sino como trabajadores y ya no llegaron a su casa”, dijo Cristina, una inmigrante de México y residente de Norristown que asistió a la vigilia el miércoles y no quería compartir su apellido por miedo a represalias. “Nos están cazando como unos animales. No somos criminales. Nuestro delito es estar aquí de inmigrantes. Pero no somos malos. Solo trabajamos”. 

“It’s sad to see that they left for work, not as criminals but as workers, and now they’re not arriving home,” said Cristina, a Norristown resident from Puebla, Mexico, who attended the vigil and did not want to share her last name for fear of reprisals. “They’re hunting us like animals. We’re not criminals. Our crime is to be here as immigrants. But we’re not bad, we just work.”

A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations and the Internal Revenue Service, along with Enforcement and Removal Operations Officers, “conducted a federal court-authorized search” of the store.

The spokesperson said agents took 14 people without legal status into ICE custody pending removal proceedings.

Denisse Agurto, executive director of Unides Para Servir Norristown, said 17 people were detained in the raid, and as many as 23 were taken into custody. None of the people detained had a criminal record, she said, and in addition to store employees, agents also detained customers. Advocates do not yet know where anyone is being held, and ICE declined to provide further details, citing an ongoing investigation.

“Están vigilando nuestras rutinas, están vigilando como nuestra comunidad funciona para luego hacer lo que ellos quieren hacer”, dijo Agurto. 

“They’re monitoring our routines, they’re monitoring how our community functions to later do what they want to do,” Agurto said. 

Consul Carlos Obrador, Head Consul of the Mexican Consulate in Philadelphia, said in a statement Wednesday night that at least six of the people detained were Mexican citizens and that the consulate is working to learn more.

“It is important to point out that regardless of their immigration status, people have basic rights. If someone is detained by immigration authorities, they have the right to request to speak with their consulate,” he said. “The Mexican Consulate is prepared to provide our nationals with legal assistance in the event they require it.”

Obrador said Mexican nationals who think their relatives have been detained can call 215-266-3740 to receive consular assistance.

Agurto said that to her group’s knowledge, there were also Guatemalan nationals among those detained.

Norristown community members say ICE is detaining ‘hardworking’ people, not criminals

More than 17% of Norristown’s population is foreign-born, and more than 30% is Latino. Immigrant community members say the level of enforcement and arrests that have been occurring in the municipality is unprecedented.

“Son veinte años que estoy aquí, y nunca jamás, en Norristown, en este país, nunca había visto tanta maldad, tanto odio, tanto rencor, tanto resentimiento hacia nosotros los laitnos”, dijo Cristina. 

“I’ve been here for 20 years, and never ever, in Norristown, in this country, never have I seen so much evil, so much hate, so much rancor, so much resentment towards us Latinos,” Cristina said. 

Edith Hernández, a Norristown resident from Mexico who also attended the vigil, said she is afraid for the undocumented members of her family who have lived in the country for decades, paying taxes and contributing to the local economy.

She said she and other community members also worry about the children of those who are detained, who might be alone, without anyone to care for them.

She said she doesn’t think any of the people detained at the supermarket on Wednesday were criminals.

“Yo vengo cada semana a la tienda y son gente trabajadora”, dijo ella. “Gente que está cumpliendo con su trabajo, con su deber”. 

“I come every week to the store and they’re hardworking people,” she said. “People that are fulfilling their job, their duty.” 

Cristina agreed.

“No estaban robando, no estaban asesinando”, dijo. “Estaban trabajando. Así es como andan agarrando a la gente. En los trabajos, no haciendo cosas malas”. 

“They weren’t stealing, they weren’t killing,” she said. “They were working. This is how they’re going around taking people. At work, not doing anything bad.” 

Agurto said businesses and residents throughout Norristown have been severely impacted by the ongoing arrests.

“Now it’s a supermarket, so maybe they’re going to come back to our community health center or other stores or here in Marshall Street, so we don’t know,” she said.

At the vigil, she called on elected officials at the local, state and federal level to do more to support immigrant community members.

Kevin Tustin, public information officer for Norristown, declined to comment on the raid, stating that the store is located outside of the municipality’s borders in West Norriton Township.

“We have seen the images of these ICE raids,” a spokesperson for Montgomery County said in a statement Wednesday night. “We are heartbroken for our friends and neighbors who were affected today, as well as those who live in fear every day.”

On Friday, U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, whose congressional district includes nearly all of Montgomery County, said in a post on X that she is “greatly disturbed” by the ongoing ICE raids in the county. 

“I’m getting calls, texts, videos, photographic evidence, of ICE raids in our county,” she said in a video. “Masked folks, unidentified cars, coming in and taking people … This is unacceptable. This comes from something like a gulag. This is not who we are as Americans.”

She urged constituents to continue to record ICE arrests and pledged to continue to “fight back” at the legislative level.

On Thursday, state Sen. Amanda Cappelletti, whose district encompasses West Norriton Township and Norristown, said in a statement on Facebook that the raids in her district are “morally reprehensible.”

“ICE has become a symbol of government overreach, and its actions represent a betrayal of our core democratic values,” she said. “These policies are not just misguided—they are an intentional attempt to reshape America through fear, division, and scapegoating.”

Organizers urge allies to document ICE arrests

Stephanie Vincent, a Montgomery County resident and leader with Community for Change Montgomery County, said she was glad to see people come out to the vigil.

“What’s happening here in Norristown and across Montgomery County is very traumatizing,” she said. “And it’s not just traumatizing for the families that are directly affected by it. It’s the whole Latino community, and even broader than that, people are really scared and frustrated and feel powerless to fight up against what’s happening in their communities.”

Vincent works with other allies to document ICE arrests and provide legal, logistical and financial support to family members of detainees. She said sometimes people are held by ICE and family members do not even know what has happened to them.

“They’ll take them from a truck and just leave it on the street,” she said.

Vincent said ICE enforcement has increased throughout the entire region, not just in places with large immigrant communities, like Philadelphia and Norristown.

“Over the last month, we’ve seen raids and ice activity in Ambler, in Bridgeport, in Pottstown, in Conshohocken … they’re all over,” she said.

She said advocates are providing know your rights training to immigrants and allies alike, but that isn’t always enough.

“We tell them that you don’t have to allow entry without a judicial warrant, you don’t have to speak, you don’t have to sign anything without an attorney,” she said. “But the problem is, these people are not following those rules. They are not giving their names and badge numbers. They are not giving the names of detainees. They are breaking windows to get into cars. So it’s a really difficult situation, because the normal rules that we have in this country are being trampled on.”