ICE Agents Pose As NYPD Officers To Locate Inwood Man: Pols

INWOOD, NY — An Inwood man is currently in an ICE facility, possibly awaiting a deportation hearing after his family was duped into giving his whereabouts away in an early-morning home visit, according to Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez.

On Saturday, Rodriguez was joined at a news conference by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Council Member Carlos Menchaca and other politicians to denounce the actions of ICE officers identifying themselves as New York Police Department officers to get inside an Inwood apartment.

The plain-clothed ICE officers arrived at 95 Thayer Street Thursday around 6 a.m., and identified themselves as police officers in an attempt to get inside Fernando Santos-Martinez's apartment, according to city officials.

Rodriguez confirmed with the 34th Precinct that none of its NYPD officers were at the address.

Santos-Martinez wasn't home, but his wife Maria, who did not want to share her last name with the press, initially declined to open the door when the agents posing as NYPD officers first knocked, according to Rodriguez.

The ICE officers changed strategy and asked the building's superintendent to convince Maria to open the door, according to Rodriguez. Fernando and Maria live together with their four children in the Inwood apartment.

ICE has not responded to Patch's request for comment.

Maria eventually opened the door, and ICE agents showed her a picture of a man who wasn't her husband. She told the Daily News that the agents said there was a "mix-up between the man in the picture and her husband, with both sharing the same name."

Maria, who thought she was speaking to NYPD officers, then provided the agents with her husband's phone number, according to Rodriguez. Through the phone number, the ICE agents were able to track Santos-Martinez down to his workplace in Harlem, where he was detained.

"He is a good man. He is not a criminal," Maria told the Daily News.

"It's crazy how they can just take you because they want to, with lies and everything," Santos-Martinez's son Armando added to the Daily News. "I'm here. I'm going to fight to the end, because it's not fair."

ICE agents posing as NYPD officers is not a new practice.

Mayor Bill de Blasio sent a letter to the agency on Saturday demanding that its agents stop using the false claim after his office has received several reports which show a pattern of the practice. The immigration agency has not officially responded to de Blasio's demand.

"It is a shame the Trump administration has continued to use ICE as a way to traumatize and separate thousands of undocumented families across the country. Most troubling is the knowledge that ICE has been deceiving families into believing they are NYPD officers," Rodriguez said in a news release. "This is completely unacceptable and a violation of the rights of hundreds of undocumented families residing in the City."

At Saturday's news conference, Rodriguez and the other politicians demanded Santos-Martinez's immediate release from ICE custody at the Hudson County Jail in Kearny, New Jersey.