"We're Here to Keep the Community Safe."
Vehicles pass by a Shell gas station and Seasons convenience store where Daniel Orellana, a longtime Framingham resident, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on May, 5, 2025, in Framingham, Mass. Orellana, who had lived in the U.S. for over a decade, was arrested by ICE agents while pumping gas. (Photo by Mark Ainscow)
On that Monday morning, the Shell station at the intersection of Concord and Cochituate buzzed with its usual chaos. Rush-hour traffic backed up at the light, horns echoed through the air, and drivers impatiently cut through the gas pumps to shave a few seconds off their commute. It was the kind of scene Daniel Orellana had seen countless times before. So when a line of dark SUVs slipped into the lot as he filled his tank, he likely assumed they were just more commuters taking the usual shortcut.
But within moments, his life changed. Lights flashed. Sirens wailed. Doors swung open. ICE agents emerged and surrounded him. They showed him a photograph, someone they claimed to be looking for, someone who looked nothing like him. Orellana tried to explain, but there was no time, no listening. He was handcuffed and taken into custody.
An unmarked Ford SUV operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is seen parked off Union Avenue, Thursday, May 15, 2025, in Framingham, Mass. (Photo by Mark Ainscow)
Scenes like this have become familiar in Framingham. The vehicles arrive quietly, unmarked and easily overlooked. Ford Explorers and Expeditions, Dodge Durangos, Nissan Pathfinders, Rogues. At first, they effortlessly blend into the neighborhood, but after a while, they don’t. They’re combat parked at sharp angles, pointed toward their target like coiled traps. The windows are tinted darker than state law allows. Blue strobe lights, barely visible, are tucked into the grille or the upper edges of the windshield.
Walk past one, and you’ll hear it — a low hum from the engine, the faint pop of radio chatter leaking through the glass. Try to look inside and there’s little to see. The windows are blacked out, opaque, they rarely give anything away. Occasionally, you might catch the glint of a keychain, an air freshener, or a small Puerto Rican flag swaying from the rearview mirror — a quiet nod toward familiarity, or camouflage.
But the purpose of these vehicles is never casual. They’re not there to blend in. They’re there to wait.
A slow drive down Franklin Street or Union Avenue might reveal the signs, if you know where to look. An unmarked SUV idling on a side road, tucked just out of view. Check Beech, Henry, Pearl, Lexington, the cross streets, and you might find another. They sit silently, engines running, agents inside waiting for the signal. When that signal comes — when a spotter calls in a likely target — the response is immediate. One vehicle pulls in ahead, another from the side, a third from behind, boxing the car in with practiced precision.
Agents step out, often masked, sometimes with weapons drawn. They identify themselves, then move quickly to detain the driver and any passengers. In Framingham, it’s common to see a fourth vehicle — a dark grey Dodge Grand Caravan, with Pennsylvania plates — arrive just moments later. That van is the transport, taking detainees to the ICE detention center in Burlington. From start to finish, the operation rarely lasts more than ten minutes.
A Dodge Grand Caravan used to transport detainees to the Boston ICE Field Office sits parked on Santander Bank parking lot, Monday, May 19, 2025, in Framingham, Mass. The vehicle has been observed on multiple occasions shuttling individuals detained in local immigration enforcement actions. (Photo by Mark Ainscow)
What’s left behind, though, lasts much longer. More than once, the car belonging to the detained has been found right where it was stopped — doors open, engine still running, wallet on the seat, groceries in the back. Whether it’s the result of shifting protocol or a shortage of space at ICE impound lots is unclear. But in the absence of an official response, the community has stepped in. Volunteers track these vehicles, contact families, and help recover them before they’re towed, ticketed, or worse — one small act of care in the wake of something that often feels so deeply impersonal.
A Chevrolet Equinox, apparently abandoned, sits parked on a quiet residential street in Framingham, Mass., Saturday, May 31, 2025. (Photo by Mark Ainscow)
One morning not long ago, at Framingham’s Butterworth Park, two unmarked SUVs sat parked along Arthur Street, both facing east toward the Wallis Street apartments. The light was just right — low and direct — and through the tinted glass of a silver Nissan Pathfinder, the silhouette of an agent came into view, reclined in the driver’s seat, quietly watching. A third vehicle, a grey Ford Explorer with police-style trim, was positioned farther down the block. When asked why he was there, the agent inside gave a brief reply:
“Federal investigation. Narcotics in your area. Nothing to worry about. We’re here to keep the community safe.”
It was rehearsed, terse, respectful, almost polite.
Heading east over Arthur St.
About twenty minutes later, all three vehicles pulled out in unison, turning down Willis Street and accelerating toward a nearby apartment complex. Their attention appeared focused on a middle-school-aged girl, who, clearly terrified, ran into the supervisor’s office for cover. When the agents were unable to produce a judicial warrant, the supervisor asked them to leave. They did, and no arrests were made. Whether she was their intended target or simply related to someone who was, remains unknown.
In Framingham, life moves forward the best it can, while the presence of ICE continues to simmer just beneath the surface. After a day of rumored enforcement activity, School Superintendent Bob Tremblay reported that more than 2,500 students — over a quarter of the district’s 9,000 — were absent from school the following day. Only a small percentage of those students are undocumented, the rest stayed home out of fear.
Each day, parents glance down side streets, scanning for unmarked SUVs. Children step off school buses more cautiously than before. The daily routines continue — work, school, errands — but across Framingham’s neighborhoods, a quiet unease has taken hold. ICE agents may come and go in minutes, but the effects linger long afterwards.
This is a city that spent years trying to build trust in its institutions, in its police, in the idea that help could be found in someone wearing a badge. But that progress has gone. Children are no longer taught to look for safety in a uniform, they’re taught, like the girl running to the building super, to run. The true legacy of ICE’s presence isn’t measured in arrest logs or deportation orders, or victory lap announcements from ICE press conferences, it’s the silence of empty classrooms. It’s the watchfulness on the playgrounds. It’s the glances exchanged on the front steps. It’s fear, quiet and constant, standing in direct contradiction to those rehearsed agents’ words, “…we’re here to keep the community safe.”
A Dodge Durango linked to Immigration and Customs Enforcement sits parked in a customer-only space during a stakeout at a gas station on Route 20, Wednesday, June 5, 2025, in Marlborough, Mass. (Photo by Mark Ainscow)