Feds charge ICE protester accused of interfering with immigrant arrest in Detroit

DETROIT — Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged a protester with interfering with Immigration & Customs Enforcement task force officers who were searching a day earlier for an immigrant accused of illegally entering the United States.

Detroiter Roman Gomez-Ocadiz was charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers, a charge that carries a penalty of up to one year in federal prison. Gomez-Ocadiz, 36, was released on $10,000 unsecured bond after making an initial appearance Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Detroit. His lawyer, Celeste Kinney, declined comment.

Details about his arrest appear to closely match those of a federal immigration raid on Detroit's west side Monday that ended with the arrest of an undocumented immigrant from Honduras and Detroit police using pepper spray against nearby protesters. The immigrant, Marcos Fabian Arita Bautista, fled from ICE Monday morning, and officers saw him enter a home near Joy and Livernois.

Around noon Monday, members of a Department of Homeland Security task force executed a search warrant at a home on Alaska Avenue. The raid ended with members of a federal task force arresting Bautista and putting the immigrant in a black Nissan Titan.

The raid and arrest are shown in a video posted on Instagram by the activist group Detroit Will Breathe.

Nearby, demonstrators were recording the encounter and started to flank members of the task force, Special Agent Bryan Norburn wrote in an affidavit filed in federal court.

Gomez-Ocadiz approached one of the officers in a silver Nissan truck and started speaking Spanish before being told to back up, according to the court filing. Instead, Gomez-Ocadiz kept talking to the officer.

The officer tried to leave through a nearby vacant field. Gomez-Ocadiz drove his silver Nissan truck alongside the federal official's vehicle and cut him off, according to the government.

The vehicle encounter described by the government matches that shown in a separate video posted on Instagram.

"Gomez-Ocadiz obstructed, impeded and/or interfered with (the officer's) exit, causing (the officer) to slam on his brakes and avoid hitting Gomez-Ocadiz’s vehicle or other protesters," Norburn wrote. "Due to Gomez-Ocadiz's actions, (the officer) had to put his vehicle in reverse and exit the field with the arrestee using a different route."

Detroit police officers and task force investigators approached Gomez-Ocadiz. He fled down a side street, according to the court filing before he was apprehended by investigators who used a taser on him after a foot chase.

Investigators also impounded his vehicle. On Monday afternoon, Gomez-Ocadiz was arrested after he arrived at the impound lot to recover his truck.

"While investigators were placing the handcuffs on Gomez-Ocadiz, (he) tensed up and refused to place his hands behind his back and refused orders to do so," the court filing reads. "After struggling for a brief period, investigators were able to secure Gomez-Ocadiz’s hands behind his back."

Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison said a federal agency had requested local officers to respond to the area to help keep the peace as the search warrant was executed. Bettison said an officer deployed pepper spray after demonstrators entered the street and approached a scout car as an officer attempted to drive it away from the scene.

Another person was arrested for allegedly causing damage to a federal vehicle, Bettison said.

"The Detroit Police Department does not engage in immigration enforcement," Bettison said in a statement. "Our mission is public safety for both law enforcement and the public. We support peaceful protesting but will not tolerate any action that puts officers or anyone else in danger."

The other person arrested at the scene was Arely Plascencia, according to several people who spoke during the public comment period at Tuesday's Detroit City Council meeting. Detroit Detention Center officials verified Plasencia is being detained at the facility and faces potential felony and misdemeanor charges, but officials declined to give more specifics.

A Detroit Police Department official, who didn't provide his name, told the City Council on Tuesday that officers responded to the scene to "keep the peace" after 20 to 25 people gathered at the 7100 block of Alaska Street.

"Some of them had metal pipes, a lead pipe," one officer said. "They were banging on drums. They made repeated attempts to get over to the property where our federal properties were at during that time."

City Council member Gabriela Santiago-Romero requested video of Monday's scene.

Detroit Will Breathe, which describes itself on social media as a "militant, anti-police brutality org formed in the streets of Detroit," called on its supporters to rally.

"It was really good that activists and community were able to be present," the group said in a statement. "We need to continue to stay vigilant, build up our capacity to respond, and strategize how we stop ICE and build a movement that fights for a world where no human is illegal."

According to ICE, Arita Bautista has been removed from the U.S. on two previous occasions.

“Arita has been removed from this country twice and fled from law enforcement officers to try and escape a situation of his own making,” said Kevin Raycraft, acting director of ICE's Enforcement & Removal Operations office in Detroit. “If you have a final order of removal and there is no legal pathway for you to remain in the United States, ICE must lawfully carry out that removal.”

Authorities said Arita Bautista entered the U.S. near Falfurrias, Texas, in September 2015. He was apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Security with an expedited removal order and then deported to Honduras.

He returned to the U.S. in February 2018 near Hidalgo, Texas. Border Patrol apprehended him again, reinstated his final order of removal and deported him again to Honduras, according to ICE. Authorities didn't say when he is believed to have entered the U.S. a third time.

In 2022, Arita Bautista pleaded guilty in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, to driving an unregistered vehicle, operating without financial responsibility and an improper title violation, ICE said.

The Detroit arrest comes as the White House intensifies an already strong push to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Late last month, Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, said the Trump administration wants ICE to make a minimum of 3,000 arrests a day. In a mid-June interview with The Washington Post, Trump border czar Tom Homan said arrests had increased to around 2,000 a day.

Authorities discouraged protesters from interfering with ICE operations.

"It is a crime to obstruct or otherwise interfere with an ICE arrest and anyone involved may be subject to prosecution under federal law," the federal agency said in a statement. "In addition, encouraging others to interfere or attempt to obstruct an arrest is extremely reckless and places all parties in jeopardy."

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