Agency: Guatemalan man deported on July 18
A Beacon resident arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in June has been removed from the country, the agency said on Thursday (Aug. 7).
ICE officers detained Santos Belarmino Perez Suchite on June 20 for violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act, an agency spokesperson said.
Perez, who lived on North Elm Street, is a Guatemalan national who “admitted he entered the United States by crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in 2024,” said Marie Ferguson, the ICE representative. “Not only did this alien blatantly disregard our nation’s immigration laws, but he also jeopardized community and officer safety by attempting to flee on foot, leading officials on a brief chase before his capture.”
ICE removed Perez from the U.S. on July 18, Ferguson said, without specifying where he was sent. The agency did not respond to follow-up questions about Perez’s age, location or whether he had a criminal record.
Beacon Mayor Lee Kyriacou announced on June 20 that ICE agents had made an arrest in Beacon after his office was informed by residents about their presence. While city officials stated they were unaware of who ICE had detained or the nature of any charges, Police Chief Tom Figlia confirmed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation that an enforcement operation had taken place.
“I want to make clear that at no time leading up to this incident did city staff, including our Police Department, have any notice of or involvement in ICE operations,” Kyriacou said at the time. “As a city, we remain committed to our safe, inclusive community policy, to preserving rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and to avoiding any policies which engender fear among law-abiding families.”
“I want to make clear that at no time leading up to this incident did city staff, including our Police Department, have any notice of or involvement in ICE operations,” Kyriacou said that day. “As a city, we remain committed to our safe, inclusive community policy, to preserving rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and to avoiding any policies which engender fear among law-abiding families.”
Figlia said the following week that ICE returned on June 21, but he did not know if anyone was detained. ICE did not respond at the time to a request from The Current for information. The agency responded to a second request this month but only released information about Perez.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, Secretary [of Homeland Security Kristi] Noem is reversing former President Biden’s catch-and-release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets,” Ferguson said. “It comes down to one question: Is this person violating our nation’s immigration laws? If the answer is yes, we’re going to remove them.”
A Beacon resident wrote in a comment after The Current’s June 20 story that he saw the ICE officers on North Elm Street. “ICE, the FBI and what appeared to be one police officer (not from the City of Beacon) staked out the house, parked at different locations along the street around 6 a.m., presumably to apprehend him on his morning commute,” he wrote, noting that he recognized Perez from the neighborhood. “We talk often. We say hello daily.” The federal agents were armed and wearing body armor, he wrote.
Arrests by ICE are up significantly since Trump returned to office in January. According to data provided in response to Freedom of Information Law requests by the Deportation Data Project, a team of academics and attorneys, the agency has in 2025 arrested 4,842 people in New York state through July 29, or 67 percent more than during the same period in 2024.
Joseph Lavetsky, an immigration attorney in Beacon, said that people who have been in the U.S. for less than two years, or who don’t have proof that they’ve been in the country for more than two years, are the most at risk because they could be subject to expedited removal.
The New York Civil Liberties Union on Aug. 1, along with other organizations, filed a federal lawsuit challenging what it called the “cruel, unlawful policy” that allows ICE to arrest people for showing up to court and prevents them from pursuing immigration cases. The suit alleges that Trump administration policies violate the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law meant to ensure transparency in how agencies create and carry out regulations.
On Aug. 9, the NYCLU joined advocate groups in a class action lawsuit against the Trump administration over lack of access to legal counsel and unsafe conditions at 26 Federal Plaza, a federal building in New York City where the organizations said more than 100 people had been confined, sometimes for weeks, to a temporary holding facility. That suit came two weeks after media reports showed what the organizations said were “unsanitary and inhumane” conditions at the center.
Hot spots for arrests in the Hudson Valley have been Newburgh, Middletown, Spring Valley and Fishkill, said Ignacio Acevedo, an NYCLU organizer. ICE officers were in Ossining at 7 a.m. on Wednesday (Aug. 13), he said.
A locator tool on the ICE website allows family members to track people arrested by the agency, although it provided no results when Perez’s name and country of origin were entered. It’s not known whether Perez had family in Beacon, but Acevedo said the NYCLU has tried to track numerous residents, often unsuccessfully, including a 19-year-old Newburgh mother who was taken by ICE agents from 26 Federal Plaza on Aug. 4.
The woman’s family “knew she was gone because she didn’t come back” from an appointment at the building, Acevedo said. After her arrest, the woman was allowed to make a phone call but then was unable to communicate with family members for five days, “and by then, she was in Louisiana,” he said. “They’re moving people from New York to a different state, where their families are not able to go.”
Joanna Dreby, a sociology professor at the University at Albany and author of Surviving the ICE Age: Children of Immigrants in New York, said “if ICE is on the street and one person is picked up, there are many more people who are affected by that action.”
