Luray-area residents are reporting a string of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests took place over the weekend. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
WMRA received multiple reports from area residents that several ICE arrests had taken place in Page County starting Friday evening. Employees of a Mexican restaurant and 7-Eleven in Luray, rumored to be arrest sites, told WMRA that arrests had not taken place in their establishments, but that ICE agents had detained people nearby.
Pastor Audre King, who preaches at the ER Church inside the REC Center in Luray, said in a Facebook video that one of his congregants was among those detained.
AUDRE KING: We were in service on Friday night.
Afterwards, he said a 48-year-old church member went to her home nearby.
KING: Where she was arrested and taken away by ICE. … She has been in the United States for 18 years, and was married to a U.S. citizen and in the process of getting her paperwork in order. … There was no raid on the REC, however, once we found this out, because we have started a Spanish church that does have other pastors in it now, we did go throughout the county to ensure that those that we knew in the body of Christ, those that we just knew in general, that we fellowship with, that we work with … were safe. Upon going through Page County around midnight, we did encounter ICE raids and women in multiple areas who were being taken away.
WMRA has not yet independently confirmed these arrests. We have contacted the federal agency for more information and are awaiting a response.
