A Venezuelan man was tackled in a New Hampshire courthouse and sent by ICE to Texas
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A Venezuelan man facing misdemeanor charges in New Hampshire was apprehended in a courthouse by federal agents who also knocked over a bystander as they tackled him.
Recently released security camera footage from Nashua Circuit Court shows two agents throwing Arnuel Marquez Colmenarez to the floor and handcuffing him on Feb. 20. An older man using a cane to walk also ended up flat on his back.
Marquez Colmenarez, 33, had been charged Feb. 9 with drunken driving, driving without a license and failing to provide information after an accident. He was heading to his arraignment on those charges when he was apprehended, Nashua Police say.
Jared Neff, the court liaison officer for the Hudson Police Department, said he was in the prosecutor's office when he heard a loud commotion near the elevators.
'There were voices yelling 'Stop!' and then a loud 'bang' which sounded like people had fallen on the ground and were actively fighting and struggling,' he wrote in an incident report.
Neff said he helped restrain Marquez Colmenarez, whom he described as actively resisting attempts to handcuff him. The agents were working on orders to detain immigrants in the country illegally, Neff said. They told Neff they had tried to detain Marquez Colmenarez quietly in the elevator, but he had fled.
A judge later issued a bench warrant after he failed to appear for his arraignment. The prosecutor handling the case wasn't contacted by federal agents before the arraignment and didn't witness the arrest, police said.
As of Monday, Colmenaraz was being held at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas, according to an online database. The agency did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Immigration officers were a growing presence at courthouses during President Donald Trump's first term, prompting pushback from judges and other local officials. The president has gone further in his second term by repealing a policy in place since 2011 for agents to generally avoid such places as schools, houses of worship and hospitals.
Under current policy, immigration officials can make arrests 'in or near courthouses when they have credible information that leads them to believe the targeted alien(s) is or will be present' and as long as they are not prohibited from doing so by state or local law.
In Boston, an ICE agent was held in contempt last month after he detained a suspect while he was on trial.
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A spokesperson said the agency would respond but had not as of publication time after multiple requests. Source will update the story as necessary. Advocates, including Chavez and immigration lawyers, have tried since May 31 to find him, including enlisting the help of U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich's office. A Heinrich spokesperson said the office had made efforts to find him but that 'ICE is not providing timely or helpful responses to our inquiries.' A recent change to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention policies has made it difficult to determine whether someone is in jail and, if so, at which detention center, said Sophia Genovese, a lawyer for the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center who joined efforts this week to find Carrero-Marquez. Following his arrest, Carrero-Marquez called his wife from detention somewhere in El Paso, Diaz-Ortiz said, and described severe pain in his head and back from the arrest, she said. 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Carrero-Marquez's arrest follows the pattern of recent ICE detentions, which leave little trail for lawyers or advocates to follow, said Genovese with the Immigration Law Center. After being arrested and hospitalized, Carrero-Marquez called his wife from his hospital bed, she said. But hospital workers would neither confirm he was there nor allow her to see or speak with him in the emergency room, she said. While the hospital would not confirm that Carrero-Marquez was hospitalized, a spokesperson said it has 'Do Not Announce' protocols as part of federal patient privacy regulations and that patients may be under that protocol 'for many reasons.' The hospital staff had no choice but to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, the hospital worker told Chavez, the state representative. A spokesperson for Presbyterian told Source that, while it cannot discuss specific patients, it is legally required to cooperate with all law enforcement agencies. 'We do not have policies designed to help or hinder any law enforcement or other governmental agencies,' a spokesperson said in an emailed statement Friday. Confusion reigns in New Mexico's militarized border zone The officers took Carrero-Marquez to jail, likely to the Torrance County Detention Center in Estancia, Genovese said, though jail records never showed him being held there. Diaz-Ortiz was the first person to hear from him, a few days after the arrest, when he called from El Paso, she said. Before Wednesday, when his name disappeared completely, ICE records didn't say where he's being held, and instead only said 'Texas,' instead of a facility name and address. According to Genovese, he could have been held at either the El Paso Service Processing Center or at a nearby former Border Patrol holding facility intended for short-term use that ICE recently took over. The ICE takeover of the holding facility has resulted in confusion and difficulty for lawyers seeking to speak to their clients. It also means no one knows where detainees are being held. 'This is like a new trend, where we're seeing a lot of people have the exact same situation where… it just says, 'Texas.' It doesn't provide a detention facility,' Genovese said. As for why he might be in jail in the first place, Genovese said ICE agents increasingly have less discretion about detaining people who, like Carrero-Marquez, are appealing denials of asylum claims. According to online records and a document provided by Diaz-Ortiz, a judge denied Carrero-Marquez's asylum request in February. Records also show he is appealing that denial, and that the appeal is pending. While he has not yet received a final removal order, ICE has discretion to detain him during 'removal proceedings,' his current status., Genovese said. That said, given the sheer number of people currently in 'removal proceedings' with pending appeals, ICE typically would not find and detain people until a final removal order is issued, Genovese said. New Mexico sheriffs respond to federal 'sanctuary' list ICE, 'for very real capacity reasons, given the limited number of beds nationwide and the millions of cases pending at immigration court, frequently exercised discretion in the form of releasing people on their own recognizance pending their removal proceedings,' Genovese said But President Donald Trump's push for mass deportation has removed ICE's choice about when and where to arrest people, she said. 'It's changed now under the Trump administration, where there is a mandate, a requirement, that ICE make thousands of arrests per day,' she said. 'And they are targeting people with active removal proceedings, many of whom do not have any sort of interaction with law enforcement which would trigger mandatory detention.' Carrero-Marquez's daughter recently celebrated graduation at a South Valley school. His wife shared a picture showing the three of them smiling, with her in a graduation gown. Since witnessing her father's arrest, the girl is depressed, Diaz-Ortiz said, and afraid of anyone who looks like a police officer. Diaz-Ortiz doesn't know whether ICE will come next for her or her daughter, whether she should enroll her daughter back in school or what to do next. But she still has to work. On Tuesday, she took her daughter along with her as she made deliveries for DoorDash, she said, suddenly the sole caregiver and sole income earner in her family. Amid the confusion and uncertainty about her husband's whereabouts, Diaz-Ortiz said she is terrified about the prospect of him being deported back to Venezuela due to his injuries and the government's repressive policies. 'In Venezuela you can't speak freely or say what you want because they attack you,' she said. 'We came here for a better future.' 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