Armed US immigration agents drive off with toddler after arrest of father | US immigration
Masked, heavily armed federal immigration agents arrested a U.S. citizen in the parking lot of a Los Angeles Home Depot store, then got into his car and drove away with his toddler, also a U.S. citizen, in the backseat.
The boy’s grandmother said the incident shook the entire family. “I am devastated by what happened to my son and I demand an explanation,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The 32-year-old father was captured Tuesday morning during a major enforcement operation at Home Depot in Los Angeles’ Cypress Park neighborhood. Five undocumented immigrants were also arrested, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Later that morning, the 32-year-old’s mother, Maria Avalos, received a phone call from an unidentified number. Agents from the U.S. Border Patrol were asking her to pick up her one-year-old grandson. “We didn’t know what happened to him while he was in their custody, and they didn’t give us any information about when my son would be released or where he was,” Avalos said at a news conference Wednesday.
Avalos said she still hasn’t been able to talk to her son to find out where he is being held. The incident was recorded on video and reported Los Angeles Times article.
Avalos said she had to wait hours at an immigration office in downtown Los Angeles to gain custody of her grandchild and was asked to provide a birth certificate. “He didn’t even know what happened to my grandson. He’s so young. He didn’t know what happened to his father,” he said.
DHS alleged that the 32-year-old “used a hammer to get out of the vehicle with a child in his car and threw rocks at law enforcement officers.” The agency did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about why agents took the child away rather than waiting for another family member to come and pick him up from the parking lot.
The agency added: “He was arrested on a charge of assault and during his arrest a handgun, reported stolen in New York state, was found in his car. He has an active warrant for property damage.”
Avalos did not comment on the agency’s accusations and said the family was seeking an attorney to represent his son. He said he believed he was targeted because of the color of his skin.
He later added that seeing this scared him. videos bystanders who recorded his son’s arrest. In a video reviewed by the Guardian, bystanders can be heard shouting in alarm as several heavily armed agents rob the father, then get into his car and drive away. The agent in the passenger seat is holding a gun.
Suddenly, the father drops his weight to the ground, but the masked agents continue to pick him up and take him away from his daughter.
“It saddened me to see him throw himself to the ground to stop my son from taking his daughter. He was protecting his daughter.” He also panicked when he saw heavily armed masked agents walking away with his grandson. “It’s a very, very scary thing because it’s not clear who these people are,” he said.
Immigration advocates were alarmed by the incident, one of several in which agents arrested parents or guardians in front of their children. This summer, authorities in Waltham, Massachusetts, confirmed that a 13-year-old boy was abandoned on the street following an immigration raid. In Southern California, a 19-year-old girl and a toddler were left behind after their father was arrested at a gas station.
“Surely there is a better way to implement their policies without separating families or placing children of sensitive ages like this child in questionable situations,” said Renee Garcia, communications director for the nonprofit legal aid organization ImmDef. “I think it’s absolutely traumatic for a child to be put in that situation.”
“It’s crazy what we’re witnessing in this country,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, communications director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (Chirla), an advocacy organization. “This isn’t supposed to happen.”
Avalos said he hopes his son can return home soon. “My son is a good, quiet, hard-working person. He works in the restaurant industry and started his new job. His family is everything to him,” he said.
“He’s the best dad. And his little girl follows him wherever he goes. But he’s safe now. He needs his daddy. I need my son, too.”
