ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In Puerto Rico, recent ICE raids have mostly rounded up immigrants from the island next door, the Dominican Republic. Dominicans have long lived in Puerto Rican communities but are often not citizens. The arrests are part of President Trump's mass deportation campaign, and they're forcing Puerto Ricans who are U.S. citizens to confront the prejudice their Dominican neighbors often face. NPR's Adrian Florido reports from San Juan.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Standing in front of her house in San Juan's biggest Dominican neighborhood, Dolores Espiritusanto says, she is now always on the lookout for ICE agents.
DOLORES ESPIRITUSANTO: (Non-English language spoken).
FLORIDO: "You think there's just a few?" She asks. "There's a lot of them." She is from the Dominican Republic. She's dark-skinned, but she says, it's not her color and features alone that make people assume she's not from here. There are many Black Puerto Ricans. She says, it's her features along with her accent.
ESPIRITUSANTO: (Non-English language spoken).
FLORIDO: "I've lived in Puerto Rico so many years," she says, "but I still say things like a Dominican does." Like...
ESPIRITUSANTO: (Non-English language spoken, laughter).
FLORIDO: "When I speak is when people know I'm not Puerto Rican," she says. And she says that is the problem right now. She worries an ICE agent will see her, hear her and ask for her papers.
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FLORIDO: She goes to her car parked on the street and grabs a sheet of paper off the passenger's seat.
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ESPIRITUSANTO: (Non-English language spoken).
FLORIDO: "If I show them this, they have no right to take me," she says. It's a copy of her U.S. passport card.
ESPIRITUSANTO: Americano.
FLORIDO: Espiritucanto became a citizen years ago. But she knows that if an immigration agent stops her, he might not believe she's here legally.
ESPIRITUSANTO: (Non-English language spoken).
FLORIDO: "When they stop you, you get nervous," she says, "even if you are legal." ICE says it's made about 500 immigration arrests in Puerto Rico since Donald Trump returned to power. Seventy-five percent of them have been Dominican nationals. They've been detained at workplace raids but also when ICE agents roll into neighborhoods looking for people. Dominicans fear their dark skin and distinctive Spanish accent are making them easy targets. Jose Rodriguez leads the Dominican Human Rights Committee, a local advocacy group.
JOSE RODRIGUEZ: Eighty percent of Dominicans is Black. You know, that's why they go to the profiling, the racial profiling against these people, because they're Black.
FLORIDO: He's been monitoring ICE operations in Dominican neighborhoods and says, a pattern is becoming clear. Agents have approached groups of Black people gathered on the street, heard their accents and asked for papers. Some with legal status have been arrested because they weren't carrying their green cards and only later were released. ICE has acknowledged this.
RODRIGUEZ: (Non-English language spoken).
FLORIDO: Rodriguez says, there's only one reason legal residents doing nothing wrong are being detained on suspicion of being in the country illegally - because they're being profiled.
REBECCA GONZALEZ-RAMOS: I don't agree with that at all. That would be very irresponsible of us, to intervene with individuals just because they have a Dominican accent.
FLORIDO: Rebecca Gonzalez-Ramos is a top ICE official in Puerto Rico. She runs its investigations office, known as HSI. She acknowledges her agents are approaching people on the street. She says they're often looking for a specific person with a deportation order but will question others and ask for their papers. She denies, though, that they are racially profiling.
GONZALEZ-RAMOS: Especially here in Puerto Rico, we are of all colors. So moving on accents and moving on people's color, you know, it's - first of all, it's illegal, and second of all, it's not the way HSI does business. We work based on intelligence and executing either arrest warrants or final orders of deportation.
FLORIDO: She says the vast majority picked up so far have been Dominican because they're the island's largest foreign-born population. But the recent raids in Puerto Rico have forced both Dominicans and Puerto Ricans to confront an uncomfortable truth.
NILKA MARRERO: You see me with the white skin?
FLORIDO: Nilka Marrero is pastor of a church that serves the Dominican neighborhood of Barrio Obrero. She's Puerto Rican, blue eyes, blond hair.
MARRERO: I walk around the barrio. I have never been detained. No one even looks at me.
FLORIDO: Dominicans have always faced racial prejudice in Puerto Rico, she says. But over the years, they've found greater acceptance. The raids have been a reminder they still don't fully belong.
MARRERO: You're Black, you walk as a Dominican man or you look like one, I'm going to snatch you.
FLORIDO: It's forcing tough conversations with her Dominican congregants.
MARRERO: I've told them to try to mask, try to speak Spanish Puerto Rican, not Dominican, try to disguise themselves a little so they can pass unseen.
FLORIDO: Do you have to braid your hair that way, she asks them? When you run to the store, do you have to wear that head wrap? She hates suggesting they hide the markers of their nationality, but she says, I just don't want them to get arrested. Adrian Florido, NPR News, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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