Mysterious notice tells immigrants to check in at Seattle-area federal building. Several get detained

Edipo Menezes, an asylum seeker from Brazil, got a surprise notice on Friday: Come to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security building in Tukwila, it said. This weekend, Saturday or Sunday. The message from ICE said “failure to report would be considered a violation.”

Menezes was among more than 40 people who showed up on Saturday at the building. The notice on the app said to arrive between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m..

By Saturday morning, a dozen people milled about the front of the building, waiting to check in.

The doors did not open at 8 a.m., which is when the building normally opens for business during the weekday. Those dozen people checked in on their app, confused as to what to do next.

The few immigration attorneys accompanying their clients said they were alarmed by the short notice and weekend appointment.

“I've been a lawyer for 20 years and never had a client called in on [a weekend],” said attorney Lesley Irizarry-Hougan.

She was at the front of the line with one of her clients early Saturday morning, right alongside Menezes. Many of her clients are worried about their own immigration cases and the status of their family and friends, she said.

"They're scared, they want to cancel, they want to give up,” Irizarry-Hougan said. “I'm like, 'No, we gotta continue, right? This is your chance.'"

Around 9:30 a.m., men in gaiters, caps and plainclothes opened the doors of the federal building to let people in. Irizarry-Hougan’s client, who asked not to be identified, was quickly checked in and released, but Irizarry-Hougan was not allowed to accompany her — effectively denying her client’s right to an attorney.

ICE agents told her that was because of safety concerns due to a growing crowd of support for the immigrants outside the federal building.

But the crowd was a welcome sight for Irizarry-Hougan.

"’I'm helping a person, one at a time, but really I think we need to show the government that we do not agree with these policies nationwide," she said.

Legal help can only go so far, Irizarry-Hougan said.

“I saved one person,” she said. “That’s all I can do today.”

As for Edipo Menezes, he had entered the federal building, but still hadn’t come back out.

The people who showed up on Saturday and Sunday are not undocumented immigrants. They have legal status to be in the U.S. monitored through the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, which tracks people through an app, and can include an electronic device placed on a person's body. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts with the private company BI to run the surveillance program.

Advocates estimate that around 200 immigrants attempted to check in with federal immigration authorities at the Tukwila facility Saturday and Sunday. Many didn’t have an immigration attorney with them.

Two immigrants were detained, including Menezes. He called his wife from inside the facility Saturday to tell her he was likely going to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. That could mean deportation.

This is the first time Menezes has been called in by immigration officials since re-entering the country four years ago to apply for asylum with his family, his wife said. They expected the weekend check in would be another step in his journey to obtain legal status.

“We thought that he would just do a check in and come back home,” said Marianne Menezes. Immigration records show Edipo had a deportation order in 2007 that Marianna said he complied with.

“I'm not sure what will happen… now we don’t have him anymore, and I don’t know what to do,” she said. The couple has been married for 14 years, and has two children, ages 4 and 13. Marianne Menezes has a separate pending asylum case with her kids.

In protest of the detentions, supporters blocked off the two main exits of the federal building Saturday, attempting to stop ICE agents from leaving the facility with the people they had detained.

Saturday afternoon around 15 members of an ICE Special Response Team faced off against the protesters, and the Tukwila Police Department also arrived, with 15 officers in riot gear.

In a social media post, Tukwila Police said they commanded the protesters to get out of the way.

“Many in the crowd complied with those commands and moved out of the drive to the sidewalk where they continued to exercise their first amendment right to peacefully protest,” the post said. “Unfortunately, a contingent of demonstrators refused to move out of the roadway.”

As the officers cleared traffic signs that were part of a blockade, they allege some protesters started throwing frozen bottles of water and rocks. That’s when they used pepper spray and balls to clear the crowd.

After a path was cleared, federal immigration agents sped away with Edipo Menezes and another detainee to be held at the Tacoma immigration lockup.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was updated on Tuesday, June 17 to provide additional details about the two people who were detained, to add police response, and to describe the scene outside the Department of Homeland Security building in Tukwila over the weekend.