Gun-toting ICE agents allegedly forced their way into a Queens home last week without announcing themselves or presenting a warrant for a person who no longer lived there, the New York Immigration Coalition said Wednesday.
The nonprofit advocacy group stated that agents broke down the door of a family’s residence at a basement apartment in Elmhurst on Nov. 13. According to the organization, the agents pointed firearms at a mother and her four children and pulled the woman from her bed before threatening to return.
Video recorded by the mother and shared by the NYIC shows her pleading with the agents, telling them her baby is in bed with her as they move to take her from the room.
“I have my baby, no!” the woman is heard saying as agents stand in the doorway with a gun and a flashlight pointed at her face.
“Then I’m coming to get you by your baby,” an agent replies before entering the bedroom and removing the woman from the bed.
Additional security footage from outside the home leading up to the incident shows armed agents entering the basement unit. In one clip, a camera positioned in nearby bushes appears to catch the attention of an agent, who then turns the camera away.
Neighbors, believing a burglary was in progress, called the police, the coalition stated. Home security footage also shows NYPD officers responding to the scene.
Officers are seen pulling up alongside the agents on the sidewalk, speaking with them briefly before driving away. The NYPD did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, the individual whom ICE was searching for no longer lives at the address, according to NYIC.
Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of NYIC, condemned the incident, calling ICE “a rogue agency that is lawlessly terrorizing New Yorkers.”
“This mother of four was in her bedroom with her children when ICE violently knocked down her door, dragging her out of bed and pointing a gun at her family members,” Awawdeh said in a statement. “The family has been traumatized … the children are fearful of leaving their mother.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security disputed allegations that ICE officers threatened the woman and her children with a firearm, saying “officers safely guided her and the children to the kitchen for their safety while they searched for the criminal target.”
The DHS said ICE and the U.S. Marshals Service were at the woman’s residence on Nov. 13 searching for her cousin, whom the agency identified as Raymundo Gabriel Huerra-Betancourt, to serve a criminal arrest warrant. DHS alleges that Huerra-Betancourt’s criminal history includes assault, reckless driving, and illegal re-entry.
“The criminal illegal alien listed the address on his probation form. The address was also associated with his social security number and phone records,” a DHS spokesperson said.
The agency also claims that officers knocked on the Elmhurst apartment door for 20 minutes, but “when no response was received, officers used their training and lawfully entered the home.”
“Upon entering the house, Jennifer Diaz, the target’s cousin, refused to respond to the officers’ repeated knocking. Diaz refused to comply with officers’ commands despite explicitly being told to exit the room for her safety. Officers safely guided her and the children to the kitchen for their safety while they searched for the criminal target,” the DHS spokesperson added.
