Immigration agents break SUV window while detaining man after church on Mother's Day
Federal immigration agents were seen breaking an SUV's window, throwing a man inside to the ground and handcuffing him on Sunday, Mother's Day, after the man and his family left church in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
It's one of many apparent ICE operations that have caused controversy across the Greater Boston area in recent weeks. Agents were seen breaking a car window in New Bedford, Massachusetts, last month before taking a man inside into custody.
In Sunday's incident, the family was just leaving church when several federal agency vehicles intercepted them at the border between Everett and Chelsea, according to video of the incident shared with Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra. After several minutes of arguing, and refusing to obey their request to roll down their window, agents broke the window to remove the man from the car.
After removing the man from the car, agents threw him to the ground and handcuffed him. Inside the vehicle were the rest of his family, including his wife, children and grandmother.
With the agents above him, the man could be heard asking why they were arresting him, claiming he wasn't resisting.
'This is an abuse, an abuse of rights,' said Mario Meléndez, a local resident, in Spanish. 'They're violating the law, just like breaking into your house, because you're in your car, which he paid for, and they want to violate your rights because you're inside and the person doesn't want to open the door. They have to respect that right.'
Telemundo New England and NBC10 Boston contacted ICE for comment on this operation but have not received a response.
Kennet Santizo, who recorded the footage, told Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra that he heard the mother screaming, 'He has his papers, he has his license!'
Santizo recounted that an officer pulled out his gun very quickly, 'and I was scared, the gun was in his face, and then he broke the window.'
The family remained silent in their vehicle, following advice widely given to undocumented immigrants, but residents and council members say that federal agents continue to violate the law.
'Immigration agents and other agents are taking actions that are illegal. They don't care much about law and order,' Chelsea Councilman Roberto Jiménez Rivera said. 'They are simply taking action, and we have taken action to sue them and maintain that we are respecting people's rights. The city has already sued the administration for things they are doing to us that are illegal.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
35 minutes ago
- The Independent
Stephen Miller meeting with ICE officials was the spark for LA protests and National Guard call-up: report
White House aide Stephen Miller has repeatedly branded the Los Angeles protests an 'insurrection' after fierce backlash to immigration raids. California 's leadership is now 'siding with insurrectionist mobs,' and Democratic officials are 'in open rebellion' against the government, according to Miller. But the far-right architect of Donald Trump's anti-immigration agenda appears to have himself lit the fuse, after reportedly rallying Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to 'just go out there and arrest illegal aliens.' Late last month, Miller pressed ICE officials to ramp up arrests after following short of the president's ambitions for record-breaking daily deportations, according to The Wall Street Journal. Federal law enforcement officers needed to 'just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,' Miller told top ICE officials, according to WSJ, citing people familiar with the meeting. Rather than develop a list of targets for arrest, Miller told agents to raid Home Depot parking lots and 7-Eleven convenience stores, the newspaper reported. Miller 'eviscerated everyone,' according to recent reporting from The Washington Examiner. ''You guys aren't doing a good job. You're horrible leaders,'' Miller reportedly said. 'He just ripped into everybody. He had nothing positive to say about anybody, shot morale down,' an official told the outlet. Miller also allegedly bet that he and a handful of agents could arrest 30 people in the streets of Washington, D.C. 'Who here thinks they can do it?' Miller reportedly said. Days later, on June 6, ICE agents descended on a Home Depot in the predominantly Latino Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles — kicking off a weekend of protests centered around a federal detention center in the city's downtown and in the nearby Paramount and Compton neighborhoods. The next morning, Border Patrol agents gathered in a gated industrial office park in Paramount, while word spread on social media that raids were imminent at another nearby Home Depot. Trump later signed a presidential memorandum deploying 'at least' 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, with U.S. Marines standing by, despite objections from Governor Gavin Newsom, who joined officials and other critics sounding the alarm that the administration is needlessly escalating unrest. Miller and Newsom have spent several days trading blows over X. In response to Newsom's renewed lawsuit calling on a federal judge to block the 'unnecessary militarization' of Los Angeles, Miller accused the governor of saying that ICE officers must withdraw from the state if they 'don't want to get assaulted or worse by insurrectionist migrant mobs.' 'The Governor's position is that Stephen Miller has no peer when it comes to creating bulls****, strawmen arguments,' Newsom's office replied. The Independent has requested comment from the White House. Miller — who is from nearby Santa Monica — routinely characterizes the city and greater Los Angeles area as a 'third-world nation' overrun by immigrants. 'A ruptured, balkanized society of strangers,' he said this week. 'Los Angeles is all the proof you need that mass migration unravels societies,' Miller said. 'You can have all the other plans and budgets you want. If you don't fix migration, then nothing else can be fixed — or saved.' In recent days, he has repeatedly accused state officials of criminal activity for supporting immigrant communities, claiming that the entire state has 'aided, abetted and conspired to facilitate the invasion of the United States' and is now supporting a 'violent rebellion' against the federal government. 'Los Angeles and California are demanding the nullification of the election results, of federal law, of national sovereignty, and of the bedrock constitutional command of one national government,' Miller said. Trump appointed Miller as a senior policy adviser during his first term, where he emerged as an influential driving force behind the several key policies, including a ban on travel to the United States from majority Muslim countries and a 'zero tolerance' policy to separate migrant children from their parents or guardians. After an election fueled by Trump's pledge for the 'largest deportation operation in American history,' Miller has become a fierce proponent of the administration's agenda in media interviews and in volatile confrontations with reporters as the president advances a more robust anti-immigration campaign. Miller has also endorsed the concept of 'remigration,' or forcible removal of immigrants and their families that has taken hold among Europe's far-right parties and
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
'MS-13 gang member' wearing Celtics shirt is nabbed after making stupid mistake while driving
An undocumented migrant and suspected member of the notorious MS-13 gang has been arrested in Massachusetts after being pulled over for allegedly using his cell phone while driving. William Alberto Villalobos-Melendez, a 24-year-old Salvadoran national who US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) say has 'verified connections' to the violent group, was apprehended in Brockton last month after a traffic stop in Middleboro, according to a statement released on Monday. An arrest photograph shows Villalobos-Melendez, in handcuffs and wearing a green Boston Celtics T-shirt, flanked by three federal officers. 'William Alberto Villalobos-Melendez has been illegally residing in the United States for almost nine years,' said Patricia H Hyde, ICE ERO Boston acting Field Office Director. 'He is a validated member of a violent transnational street gang and poses a threat to our Massachusetts residents,' she added. 'ICE Boston will not tolerate any threat that a member of a nefarious gang poses to our neighbors.' In March state police pulled over the 24-year-old man and charged him with operating a motor vehicle without a license and using an electronic device while driving, according to the agency. A day later he was arrested during a coordinated operation led by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston with support from ICE Homeland Security Investigations New England and the FBI's Boston division. He was taken into ICE custody where he will remain pending approval for his removal from the US. 'We will continue to prioritize public safety by arresting criminal alien threats to our New England communities,' Hyde added. Villalobos-Melendez was first arrested by US Border Patrol (USBP) in October 2016 after illegally entering the country near Hidalgo, Texas, according to the agency. After his initial entry into the US, Border Patrol officials determined that he had entered without admission or inspection by an immigration official. USBP issued Villalobos-Melendez a notice in response, ordering him to appear before a Justice Department immigration judge. In June of 2019 a DOJ judge ordered that the 24-year-old Salvadoran national be removed from the country, according to ICE. The Trump administration rounded up almost 1,500 migrants in Massachusetts in May, the biggest ICE sweep yet, officials said last week. ICE chief Hyde said that 277 migrants have been deported and that 790 were criminals. A migrant arrested on May 7 was found to have been deported five previous times and came back into the US committing a slew of violent offenses, according to Leah Foley, the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. 'Those arrested included individuals who pumped deadly narcotics into our neighborhoods, trafficked firearms for trans-national criminal organizations, defrauded government benefit programs, and in some cases, preyed on vulnerable children,' Foley said at a news conference. 'These are defendants who didn't simply cross a border, they crossed a line and jeopardized the safety of Massachusetts.' Todd Lyons, the director of ICE, credited 'hundreds of brave officers' who he said 'risked their lives every day' to capture migrants. Lyons, a Boston native, said they arrested several convicted murderers, child sex offenders and abusers as he turned to a board of mugshots of some of the migrants arrested. 'ICE is going to make sure we keep the community safe,' Lyons added. Last month Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, often referred to as the 'Democratic dictator' for her progressive policies, ignited controversy after an on-air interview about federal immigration authorities as raids erupted across the state. In the interview at the WBUR Festival the 40-year-old mayor described ICE agents as 'secret police' who are 'terrorizing' people across Boston. 'People are terrified for their lives and for their neighbors,' Wu said. 'Folks are getting snatched off the street by secret police who are wearing masks, who can offer no justification for why certain people are being taken and then detained.' Her remarks prompted a swift response from US Attorney Foley, who condemned the mayor for 'inciting hostility' against federal agents. 'Referring to federal agents as 'secret police' is offensive,' Foley said in a video shared to X. 'There are no secret police.' 'ICE agents, along with other federal law enforcement partners, are making immigration arrests. That is no secret.' 'They are arresting individuals who are here illegally, which is a violation of federal law,' she added. 'To claim otherwise is a gross misrepresentation and a disservice to the public.' As of Tuesday the Trump administration has deported more than 139,000 migrants, which represents a sharp increase since inauguration day but falls behind the president's aggressive targets. The sweeping effort has not been without controversy. A number of individuals have been wrongly deported, including to El Salvador's notorious CECOT mega-prison. The clampdown has also prompted furious riots, the most serious of which in Los Angeles were still raging as of Tuesday.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Federal immigration raid at Omaha meat production plant sparks protests
Immigration authorities raided at least one Omaha meat production plant Tuesday morning, inspiring some small protests, but details about how many workers were affected weren't immediately clear. Omaha police and the Douglas County sheriff said immigration officials had warned them about their plans, and their departments helped block off traffic around the neighborhood where many food production plants are located while U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers worked. Meatpacking plants rely heavily on immigrant workers who are willing to do the physically demanding work. The industry has not yet been the focus of President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement efforts, but the administration has been intensifying its efforts in recent weeks. Trump called out the National Guard this week to respond to ongoing protests in Los Angeles over his immigration policies. In Omaha, a small group of people came out to protest the raids, and some of them even jumped on the front bumper of a vehicle to try to stop officers in one location while others threw rocks at officials' vehicles as a white bus carrying workers pulled away from a plant. Glenn Valley Foods officials didn't immediately respond to an inquiry from The Associated Press, but WOWT reported that CEO and owner Gary Rohwer said he wasn't made aware of the operation ahead of time and that there was no warrant. 'Of course not. It's a raid,' said Rohwer, whose company makes the Gary's QuickSteak brand of ready-to-grill steak. Federal agents entered the plant around 9 a.m. Tuesday with a list of 97 people they wanted to screen, Rohwer said. He said the company regularly checks the immigration status of employees with the federal E-Verify database. ICE officials didn't immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press, but the agency confirmed the raid at Glenn Valley Foods to the Omaha World-Herald. 'U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and federal law enforcement partners, executed a federal search warrant at Glenn Valley Foods, today, based on an ongoing criminal investigation into the large-scale employment of aliens without authorization to work in the United States," ICE said in a statement. "The worksite enforcement operation is likely the largest to take place in Nebraska since the start of the current presidential administration, which has prioritized immigration enforcement efforts and strengthened focus on border security.' The raid prompted one Douglas County Commissioner to walk out in the middle of a meeting Tuesday to head down to the area he represents in southeast Omaha where the plants are located. Commissioner Roger Garcia and City Councilman Ron Hug both expressed concern about the impact on families. 'These actions are deeply harmful to the South Omaha community,' Hug said in a statement. 'Not only are they unjust and disruptive, but they also directly undermine the economic stability and growth of District 4 and the broader community.' Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson said his agency is 'not privy to the exact nature of the ICE operation' but that his agency is there to assist with assuring 'peace and safety' of everyone in the area. Asked when he learned of the operation, he said his department received 'respectful and ample notification.' He says he got the notification about a week ago.
