New Bedford, Mass. (AP) – A Massachusetts family requests responses from American immigration and customs application, complaining of their agents broken a car window with a hammer and detained a man who, according to them, had asked for asylum.
A family lawyer also claims that the agents did not seek Juan Francisco Mendez when they caught him in New Bedford, Massachusetts on Monday, while going to a dentist meeting. Lawyer, Ondine Galvez-Sniffin, told the Associated Press during an interview that the agents said they were looking for another man with a different name before shooting him with his wife out of the car.
The incident, recorded on video by the wife of Mendez, Marilu Domingo Ortiz, shows ice agents using a hammer to break the car window, then enter Ortiz. The family thinks Mendez is detained in an establishment in Dover, in New Hampshire.
“When I arrived at the scene, my client's wife sobbed. She was crying. She was trembling,” said Galvez-Sniffin, adding that Mendez shouted “help me” in Spanish when he was hunted in the handcuffs.
“I went to the car and I saw the broken window, the glass on the back seat, and I was shocked,” added the lawyer. “I have been doing immigration work for 27 years and it was the first time that I saw such violent drastic measures.”
A spokesperson for ICE did not return repeated messages in search of comments.
The mayor of New Bedford, Jon Mitchell, in an article on X, said that the incident “raises questions that require clear answers”, including why local police have not been alerted in advance. He also wondered if ice agents target criminals as the Trump administration had promised or “engaged in a blind overview of people with an uncertain immigration status”.
Ortiz and his 9 -year -old son have already been offered under asylum status on fears to face the persecution if they returned home to Guatemala.
Galvez-Sniffin said Mendez has been in the country for four years and worked in the seafood industry in New Bedford. He had no criminal record, she said, and was applying for asylum. He had been digital imprint in December, she said, adding nothing turned out in terms of criminal records.
“There was really no reason to treat him like him and his wife were treated.” Galvez-Sniffin said, adding that the agents refused to look at the documents showing that he had applied for asylum.
“My biggest concern, the greatest concern of his family is to bring him back,” she said. “He has no criminal context and everything to stay in this country.”
The incident comes as the governor and officials of the law enforcement of New England have raised concerns concerning tactics Ice uses to have people.
Last month, Brian Sullivan ice agent took Wilson Martell-Lebron, 49, in detention when he left the court. The judge of the Boston Municipal Court, Mark Summerville, found Sullivan in outrage, arguing that he deprived Martell-Lebron of his rights to a regular procedure and a fair trial.
This case has since been abandoned, but detention outside the court while Martell-Lebron was tried prompted the District Prosecutor of Suffolk, Kevin Hayden, to call the actions of the ice “disturbing and extraordinarily imprudent”.
Turkey Turkey's Türkiye's 30 -year -old Toftsa Ozturk University is also challenge by ice. A video account The watch to walk on a street in a suburb of Boston while it is surrounded by immigration officials. Ozturk is heard shouting as they take his mobile phone and sees himself handcuffed. His lawyers called for his immediate release.
