Federal immigration officials were active in Sitka in early March, but the increased law enforcement presence that some residents noticed last week was for unrelated purposes, Sitka Police Department says.
The activity last week centered on a training event for officers and other public safety personnel on the proper way to respond to an overdose fatality scene, and was not an active operation or investigation, Sitka Police Department spokesperson Serena Wild said Friday.
In early March, Immigration, Customs and Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, came to Sitka to enforce restrictions on visas and arrested one man, Wild told the Sentinel.
She said residents ICE interacted with were Mexican citizens, “who had visas, but they weren't work visas. So I believe ICE did go in and say, ‘Hey, here's your notice that you aren't here legally to work. You can go and get the legal stuff and come back, but if you don't leave after you've been given this notice, and you try to apply later, or we find you later, then there could be negative consequences.’ So it was more of a notice… They were here on visas, just not the proper type of visa,” Wild said.
“I believe that they did detain one who was here illegally, who had a record, who has a violent record,” she added.
Om March 19 U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Rosario Pete Vasquez tweeted about the arrest in Sitka of a man named Cipriano Guerrero.
“Guerrero, a Mexican citizen illegally present in the U.S., has a prior felony DUI arrest. He is currently being held for removal to Mexico,” Vasquez said in the tweet.
Alaska court records show Guerrero was charged in 2023 with a felony driving under the influence here, and pleaded guilty the following year in the Sitka courthouse.
Wild said SPD has heard reports of further ICE activity in town more recently, but was unable to confirm details.
“We have rumors that they're here now, and I believe if they're here now, it's going to be the same stuff of just notices,” Wild said. “They're not here to pull people, they're not going to go into the schools and be talking to the kids. They're here to give notices.”
Rumors of immigration enforcement activity in town also reached local schools, and district Superintendent Deidre Jenson sent an email to district employees Friday telling them that in the event enforcement officers show up, they should be directed to the school distrct office.
“We're just doing our due diligence to make sure that students will be kept safe and confidential information is going to be kept confidential,” Jenson told the Sentinel Friday. “... It would work like any other information that needs to be shared. Just because someone says they work for a certain agency doesn't mean that we can give them whatever; we have to have the legal documentation that we legally are able to provide that information.”
A warrant would be required for officers to conduct a search, she said.
The district does not keep track of students’ immigration status, she added.
People, including migrants, have the right under the Fifth Amendment to remain silent when spoken to by police, the nonprofit Immigrant Legal Resource Center says on its website.
In a separate event last week which triggered a flurry of rumors of ICE activity, local law enforcement officers and others from across the region flew to Sitka for training in a Western States Information Network seminar on ways to approach the scene of an overdose death with an eye to future prosecution of dealers.
The multi-agency event was held at Centennial Hall Wednesday and Thursday. At the Sitka Police Department, Serena Wild said the training pertained to “investigating overdose cases and the pursuit of distribution of a controlled substance relating in death prosecutions. They're learning how best to approach ODs to capture the scene to then later on, maybe, be able to use for prosecution on the dealers and the higher ups."
About 30 officers, including three from the Sitka department, along with some medical personnel attended. WISN is a regional arm of the Regional Information Sharing Systems program, a federally funded but regionally managed police consortium.
