Last week, on a quiet rainy morning near the Newton/Watertown line, a swarm of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived in five dark, unmarked vehicles, surrounded a car and eventually pulled two men out of the vehicle and arrested them.

A WBUR piece describes the agents as having dragged and punched one man, who screamed in pain. The incident, first reported by Fig City News, is the latest in a series of ICE raids and arrests across Massachusetts, including incidents in Worcester and Waltham last week.

Fig City reported a second ICE arrest this week, on Lexington Street in Newton.

And local leaders are crying foul.

“ICE came to the Watertown/Newton line and violently abducted two people without due process,” Newton Indivisible, a social justice activist group that holds weekly demonstrations against the Trump administration in Newton, posted on the app BlueSky after the arrest. “This is shocking and abhorrent.”

Ward 5 City Councilor Bill Humphrey called the ICE raids “gravely alarming and well outside any normal, local processes for law enforcement or judicial due process.”

“I oppose the overreach of these federal arrests in general, but also I believe the specific means by which they are occurring is wildly dangerous: Given ICE’s reliance on masks and other resistance to transparency during these actions, how are bystanders meant to know whether there is any validity to what they are witnessing, as opposed to criminals posing as law enforcement in order to kidnap someone off the street?” Humphrey posted on Facebook on Thursday. “If they interfere, they risk arrest themselves, but we should want bystanders to feel comfortable intervening when they see unidentifiable masked men jumping someone and forcibly disappearing them off the street.”

Humphrey added that he’s spent the days since the incident brushing up on Newton’s policies when it comes to these kinds of situations.

Newton is a “welcoming city,” which is almost like a sanctuary city. But Mayor Ruthanne Fuller and Police Chief George McMains issued a joint statement noting that local police are not allowed to disrupt federal law enforcement operations.

“Importantly, the Newton Police Department does not aid, assist or play any role in ICE’s efforts. That said, ICE does have broad authority to enforce immigration laws in cities and towns throughout the United States,” the statement reads. “If we learn of an incident within the City of Newton involving the potential violation of a suspected immigrant’s civil rights, we will quickly alert the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General. We have already been in meetings with the Attorney General’s Office and know who to contact.

Humphrey called for vocal leadership in the face of continued ICE presence in the region.

“We are in the midst of a gross overreach of federal authority, implemented in a manner intended to maximize fear. Silence is the wrong response,” Humphrey’s statement continues. “If you see something, say something. We only even know about this incident because private eyewitnesses reported it, recorded it, and shared it with the media.”

A vigil for detained local immigrants is planned on Wednesday at 5 p.m. at the intersection of Maple and Galen streets in Watertown.

If you see or hear any ICE activity in Newton be sure to let us know. Email editor Bryan McGonigle at editor@newtonbeacon.org.