The ICE raid of a South Burlington home that erupted into street clashes with activists and the arrests of three immigrants began with a case of mistaken identity.
The agency admitted as much in a new court filing Tuesday, casting further doubt on the legitimacy of the controversial enforcement operation.
The March 11 raid followed what law enforcement have previously described as a short, chaotic car chase between ICE agents and a Mexican man they were seeking to apprehend. ICE claimed that the man, Deyvi Daniel Corona-Sanchez, struck an unmarked ICE vehicle and another car on Dorset Street before fleeing on foot into the home.
After obtaining a search warrant, wrenching a band of activists from the front steps and ramming through the front door, agents did not find Corona-Sanchez inside and instead detained three immigrant residents of the home. Their arrests prompted an hourslong, intense confrontation with activists in the street who sought to prevent agents from leaving with the detainees.
Judges later granted release from prison to the three immigrants after concluding that their detentions were unlawful. But ICE insisted in its sole public statement last week that Corona-Sanchez was driving the Toyota Camry that agents had pursued.
Now, in a revised criminal complaint against Corona-Sanchez alleging his illegal re-entry into the United States, agent Colton Riley wrote that he no longer believed Corona-Sanchez was in the car.
That’s because Christian Jerez Andrade, a Honduran man who ICE arrested inside the Dorset Street home, admitted that he was the driver during an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Riley wrote.
Jerez Andrade told the FBI that an 18-year-old man was a passenger in the car. Jerez Andrade’s 18-year-old nephew, José, was inside the home during the ICE raid.
Jerez Andrade’s immigration attorney, Nathan Virag, did not dispute the document’s description of his client’s statement to the FBI. But he said his client disputes ICE’s account of the alleged car chase. He declined further comment on Tuesday morning.
Virag disclosed Jerez Andrade’s cooperation with the FBI during a recent court hearing seeking his client’s release from detention. He told a federal judge in Burlington that Jerez Andrade’s two-and-a-half-hour interview was proof that he was neither a danger to the community nor likely to flee authorities.
The District Court judge ordered the government to provide Jerez Andrade with a separate bond hearing in immigration court. The immigration judge then released him on $10,000 bond.
Federal authorities so far have not charged Jerez Andrade with a crime related to the alleged car chase. He faces a separate civil deportation proceeding as a result of his apprehension by ICE, though Virag has said he plans to challenge it.
Corona-Sanchez’s whereabouts are still unknown.
The new filing indicates that Corona-Sanchez came onto the agency’s radar following his arrest by Middlebury police in January.
ICE received an alert from an “immigration criminal alien program database,” that is typically triggered by fingerprint analysis, Riley wrote. The program, according to Riley, matched fingerprints from Corona-Sanchez’s arrest in Middlebury and his 2022 encounter with federal agents in Texas.
In his earlier application for a search warrant of the Dorset Street home, Riley stated that he was surveilling the residence when he saw a blue Toyota Camry in the driveway. He looked up the car’s registration and said it was registered to Corona-Sanchez.
From about 50 yards away, Riley saw two men get inside the car. The man who entered the driver’s seat, he estimated, was 5 feet, 7 inches tall and 180 pounds. Riley reviewed a photograph of Corona-Sanchez “from a prior immigration interaction” he wrote, and thought it was the same man.
A different agent later told Riley that he saw two men flee the car on foot and run inside the Dorset Street home.
Those facts formed the basis of the search warrant for the home, which U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin J. Doyle approved.
The warrant authorized ICE to search the home within two weeks, between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
ICE agents insisted on executing the warrant that same day, local law enforcement officials have said, compelling them to muster a special unit of the Vermont State Police in tactical gear to control the angry crowd of activists.
