MIAMI (AP) — On a late March afternoon, a Florida Fish and Wildlife officer pulled up to a Guatemalan couple walking their dog in a park in the affluent beachside community of Bonita Springs, along the Gulf Coast. From his car, he asked to see the husband’s identification and then ordered them to head toward the park exit, according to the wife.When they arrived in the parking lot, the officer arrested the husband on a bogus charge, said his wife, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity for her and her 48-year-old husband because she didn’t want to risk being detained as well or put either of their pending asylum cases at risk.“He told us he was issuing a ticket because the dog had bitten him, but that wasn’t true because the officer never got out of the car,” she said. “He started making calls, arrested him, and waited 40 minutes” for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to arrive and take her husband away.
Trump’s immigration crackdown has met with fierce resistance in Democratic-led sanctuary cities, where police are forbidden from assisting, elected officials have pushed back and local residents have tried to defend their migrant neighbors by whistling the alarm, recording cellphone videos and berating the masked federal agents viewed by many as an invading force.
