Lawyers and advocates say 48 people are unaccounted for after ICE raid in New Mexico

Attorneys are sounding the alarm about the unknown whereabouts of 48 people after immigration raids swept through three New Mexico cities in March.

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico said in a civil rights complaint that the absence of families searching for loved ones who were taken away is an anomaly. They are calling for an investigation regarding the whereabouts and well-being of the “disappeared individuals” in the complaint filed Sunday with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

The people were “snatched up” in Santa Fe, Roswell and Albuquerque, and ACLU and other organizations have been unable to locate them since the weeklong raids ended March 8, said Rebecca Sheff, senior staff attorney at the ACLU New Mexico.

“We don’t have anybody and that’s exactly the concerns, that they’ve been effectively ‘disappeared.’ We have yet to learn any of their identities or whereabouts or the authorities under which they were held or conditions of their detention. We don’t know if they’ve already been deported,” Sheff said.

“Disappeared” is a word that has most often been used in reference to people secreted away by military or law enforcement in repressive regimes in Latin America and other regions.