Staring at her hands, twisting her fingers, and bouncing her knee nervously, 13-year-old Danny recalled in a hollow voice the moment her father was snatched away by ICE on a Queens street.
Her piercing screams, calling out for her father, were drowned out by her mother’s tearful pleas to the feds that there was some misunderstanding. Her husband’s case was still ongoing.
Danny’s family (their last name has been withheld by amNewYork, due to the sensitive nature of the pending case) had traveled to the US from Venezuela, a country riddled with violence — yet Danny told this reporter that ICE’s apprehension of her father has been the most traumatic moment of her life.
The incident unfolded in Maspeth, Queens on Oct. 18, during which Danny’s family headed out for a Saturday night dinner. Instead, ICE agents sprang out of nowhere and pulled a man into an unmarked vehicle in front of his weeping wife and child.
Danny recalled riding with her mother and father in their car near the corner of 59th Street and 56th Avenue at around 5:40 p.m. that evening when her father noticed men taking photos of their vehicle.
“My dad got out of the car, and then he went to the ICE people, and he said: ‘What happened?’ And then the ICE people said ‘Can I have your ID?’ And he said, ‘Sure,'” Danny said. “Then my dad gave them the ID. After that, they say he can’t stay here in the United States, so they’re going to take my dad, and they took him. They don’t care about me.”
In a video recorded by the girl and provided to amNewYork, the armed men could be seen shoving her mother, Mirla, as she tried to open the doors to the ICE vehicle, in an attempt to speak to her husband.
“Why are you f**king pushing my mom? Why are you pushing my mom?” Danny could be heard in the video screaming between desperate, tear-fueled wails. “Don’t touch her! I love you, Papa!”
In response, one of the ICE agents reprimanded her mother.
“Your mom does that again and we are going to have to arrest her,” one of the agents threatened the teen. “She can’t open the door.”
Earlier in the video, one of the agents can be heard telling Mirla that her husband does not have the paperwork to be in the country. She protested, stating that he has legal status.
“It was denied, I checked the system,” the agent said.
In the days following the chaotic and emotional detainment, Mirla told amNewYork that her husband was taken to 26 Federal Plaza, where ICE has a holding facility despite an outstanding court order not to detain large numbers of immigrants on site. Mirla’s husband was then transferred to New Jersey.
Breaking down in tears to amNewYork, she said she is now worried for the future.
“It is very difficult. He was the one who did everything for us,” Mirla said while sobbing. “I have two kids. He was the one who paid rent, the car insurance, the food, he did everything in the house. Now, the landlady is asking me what I am going to do, and I don’t know what I am going to do.”
Danny said that with her father detained, her mother is attempting to take on odd jobs in order to pay the bills, while she herself is struggling to live with the loss.
“My mom was working, she has been cleaning houses every day, and I help her. I’m going with her, and we clean the houses,” Danny said. “It has affected me so much, cause he’s my dad. He’s my life. I love him so much, and I want him to come back, because I miss him so much.”
Mirla is currently searching for a lawyer to help her with her husband’s case; however, like countless other families in similar situations, she can’t afford one.
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