A Massachusetts family is demanding answers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), complaining its agents smashed a car window with a large hammer and detained a man whom they say had applied for asylum.
A lawyer for the family also claims agents were not looking for the man in the car, Juan Francisco Mendez, when they grabbed him on Monday in New Bedford while he was driving to a dental appointment. He is now believed to have been taken into Ice detention.
The lawyer, Ondine Galvez-Sniffin, told the Associated Press in an interview that the agents claimed they were looking for another man with a different name before they dragged Mendez and his wife out of the car.
The incident, recorded on video by Mendez’s wife, Marilu Domingo Ortiz, shows Ice agents using a long-handled hammer to smash the car window to apparently seize Mendez. The family believes he is being held at a facility in Dover, New Hampshire.
“When I arrived on the scene, my client’s wife was sobbing. She was crying. She was shaking,” Galvez-Sniffin said, adding that Mendez yelled “help me” in Spanish as he was driven away in handcuffs.
“I walked over to the car and I see the busted window, the glass all over the back seat, and I was shocked,” the lawyer added. “I’ve been doing immigration work for 27 years and this was the first time that I saw such violent, drastic measures being taken.”
A spokesperson for Ice did not return repeated requests for comment.
Another lawyer for Mendez, Ryan Sullivan, said a federal judge in New Hampshire ruled on Wednesday that the government must give his attorneys 72 hours notice before moving him anywhere. Sullivan believes that is enough time to determine next steps in his case.
Ortiz and her nine-year-old son have already been given legal protection under an asylum status, over fears of facing persecution if they returned to their native Guatemala. Mendez was in the process of applying for what is called derivative asylum, where you can be granted asylum if a family member already has it.
The woman said she was scared when Ice broke into their car and never expected someone from her family would be detained like this.
“We came here to do honest work. To fight for our family,” Ortiz said through an interpreter. “What they did, or what they’re doing right now, no, it’s not fair. We don’t deserve that treatment.”
Ortiz said she was worried about the toll the detention was taking, especially on her son. “He has already stopped eating because of what we’re going through,” she said. “I just hope that they release my husband so he can come back with us and that my son can be with him as well.”
New Bedford’s mayor, Jon Mitchell, in a post on X, said the incident “raises questions that require clear answers”, including why local police weren’t alerted beforehand.
He also questioned whether Ice agents are targeting criminals as the Trump administration promised or, rather, “engaging in an indiscriminate round-up of individuals with uncertain immigration status”.
Galvez-Sniffin said Mendez had been in the country for four years and worked in the seafood industry in New Bedford, that he had no criminal record was applying for asylum. He was fingerprinted in December, she said, adding that nothing turned up in terms of a criminal record.
“There really was no reason to treat him the way that he and his wife were treated.” Galvez-Sniffin said, adding that agents refused to look at the paperwork showing that he had applied for asylum.
Source: theguardian.com
