Could Macon Hispanic festival be a target for immigration enforcement?

Caption

Dancers perform on stage at the 2024 Macon-Bibb Hispanic Festival.

Credit: Yadira Sandoval

This year’s Macon-Bibb Hispanic Festival will feature increased security and social workers because of concerns about attending while Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains a significant number of immigrants nationwide.

The event, which celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month, will have more deputies than at previous Macon-Bibb Hispanic Festivals, but they won’t carry out immigration-related measures, according to Edna Adams, an organizer on the festival committee and public relations specialist for Macon-Bibb County.

“We’re exploring our options as we’re aware of what’s happening across the country,” Adams told The Telegraph.

Deputies have not been notified if ICE officers will show up, according to Col. Chris Patterson, who leads the Bibb County Jail.

“If something happens where (the festival) needs us for safety or security like that because some other people have gotten in a fight or there’s been a theft or there is whatever, then we would go to that if we’re called to that,” Patterson said. “But prearranged something, I have no knowledge of that.”

He said he didn’t know about extra deputies at the festival as of Thursday.

If federal officers show up and carry out immigration enforcement measures at the event, Bibb County deputies cannot interfere and mostly aren’t expected to assist, according to Patterson.

“They don’t initiate (immigration) paperwork... they don’t go out to the public, they don’t go out looking for people,” Patterson said.

The sheriff’s office has a memorandum of understanding, or agreement with ICE, that allows three booking deputies at the Bibb County Jail to serve pre-existing warrants on anyone who was already arrested with other charges.

ICE can file a detainer on the person, which requests for the jail to hold them for up to two days “beyond the time they would ordinarily release them so (the Department of Homeland Security) has time to assume custody in accordance with federal immigration law,” the agency said..

Adams said she plans to have social workers on standby at the event to support people if needed, and help with legal challenges if immigration officers show up.

“We’re getting feedback that people are worried,” she told The Telegraph.

Email to mayor

Paula Del Rio was born in Colombia, moved to the U.S. in 2005, and lives in Macon, where she usually feels safe as a U.S. citizen, she said.

But Del Rio was concerned that she could be racially profiled, and a public Hispanic festival could be a target environment to carry out immigration-related arrests. Federal officers are following mass immigration detainment orders by President Donald Trump, and raided farms, factories and other places with large Hispanic populations this year.

“I have the general concern that Latino communities have all over the United States: They’re afraid ICE will show up to the festivals,” Del Rio said.

She emailed her concerns to Macon-Bibb County Mayor Lester Miller last week, and asked how the local government will protect and support festival attendees.

“I understand that local governments do not have the ability to stop ICE, however, you do have the responsibility to protect the citizens regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation,” Del Rio told The Telegraph.

Adams confirmed Del Rio’s email was received and Miller responded, which Del Rio said she was thankful for — but she’s still worried.

“He said he understands my concerns and the fears of the Latino community in general, but he doesn’t have power over ICE showing up,” Del Rio said.

She plans to attend the festival with her family, but was worried she and others may be racially profiled.

“I’m a U.S. citizen so my situation is different, but it doesn’t mean that I could not be profiled, because the Supreme Court was very clear in the fact that it is legal to profile us just because of the way we look,” Del Rio said.

The U.S. Supreme Court lifted a temporary ban of racial profiling by ICE in Los Angeles on Sept. 8, CNN reported.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects against unlawful searches and seizures, “may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little,” NBC News reported.

Del Rio echoed Sotomayor’s message and said the decision sets a precedent to let other law enforcement officers stop someone based on their race or ethnicity.

“It’s not an attack on the mayor or the local government, it’s just a valid question of concern in my people, in my community,” Del Rio said.

Organizer: It’s a safe space

Adams, a first-generation Mexican-American, still encouraged people of all races and ethnicities to attend the event.

“The Hispanic festival is about culture, unity, celebration and not immigration enforcement,” Adams said. “That’s not our goal. We’re not out there to enforce immigration.”

“I am proud to have a Mexican background, celebrate that culture and pass that along to my kid, my friends and my community,” she said.

The festival aims to celebrate and build a safe space for Hispanic communities, and educate others about “the vibrance that this community brings,” Adams said.

The free festival will have food, handcrafts, live music, dancing, art and other activities from 1-7 p.m. on Oct. 18, at Cherry Street Plaza, 310 Cherry St. in downtown Macon. It falls just after Hispanic Heritage Month, which is celebrated from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Grant Blankenship, an editor and reporter for Georgia Public Broadcasting, contributed to this reporting. It comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with The Macon Telegraph.