Misdemeanor shoplifting incident led to seizure of immigrant with routine check of fingerprints
The person detained by immigration enforcement agents outside Cambridge police headquarters this month is a 35-year-old woman from Revere, Leidy Torres Castano, police said last week. Cambridge police had arrested her on suspicion of trying to steal cream worth $33 from a Central Square business and pushing an employee as she fled.
Though police refused to tell Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after the arrest whether Castano was in the police station, the routine check of her fingerprints with a national database to verify her identity probably tipped off Ice that she had been arrested, police said in a statement responding to questions from Cambridge Day.
Police commissioner Christine Elow told city councillors May 19 that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents waited outside police headquarters to detain a person who had been arrested by Cambridge officers. Police refused to tell the agents whether their target was still inside the building, Elow said. She did not identify the person Ice was seeking. Police named Castano last week in the department’s statement…