Masked, heavily armed immigration agents arrested a US citizen in the parking lot of a Los Angeles depot store, taking away her child, who is also a US citizen.
The boy’s grandmother said the incident left the entire family devastated. “I am horrified by what happened to my son and demand an explanation,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The 32-year-old father was selected in a major enforcement operation at the Home Depot in Cypres Park, La. on Tuesday morning. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), five undocumented immigrants were also arrested.
Later that morning, Maria Avalos, the mother of the 32-year-old, got a call from an unknown number. It was the agents of the US Border Patrol in the US, asked to pick up his one-year-old grandmother. “We don’t know what happened to him while he was in their care, and they wouldn’t give us information about when he would be released or where he would be,” Avalos said at a press conference Wednesday.
Avalos said she has not yet spoken to her son to find out where he is being held. The incident was caught on video and first reported in the Los Angeles Times.
Avalos said she waited hours at an immigration office in Los Angeles to get custody of her grandson, and was made to provide a birth certificate. “My granddaughter doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s too young. She doesn’t know what’s going on with her father,” he said.
DHS said the 32-year-old “got out of his car using a hammer and threw rocks at law enforcement while he had a child in his car”. The agency did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about why the agents moved the child away instead of waiting for another family member to come out of the parking lot.
The agency added: “He was arrested for assault and upon his arrest a pistol was found in his car, which was reported stolen from the state of New York. The individual has an active warrant for property damage.”
Avalos did not comment on the agency’s accusations, and said the family is seeking an attorney to represent her son. He believed he was being targeted because of the color of his skin, he said.
He was afraid, he added, later it would appear videos From those who faced recording the arrest of his son. In a video examined by the Guardian, people trying to shout the alarm that several armed agents initially weaken the father, and then enter his car and drive away from his car. The agent in the passenger seat was holding a gun in his hands.
At one point, the father dropped his weight on the ground, but the masked agents targeted him and continued to shower him from his daughter.
“I was sad to see my son throw himself on the floor to prevent them from taking his daughter,’ he said.” He was protecting his daughter. ” She was also alarmed to see masked agents, who were heavily armed, drive away with her granddaughter. “This is something very, very frightening, because it’s not clear who these people are,” she said.
Immigrant advocates have raised the alarm about the incident, which is one of many cases in which agents have arrested parents or guardians in front of their children. This summer, officials in Waltham, Massachusetts confirmed that a 13-year-old was left on the street after an immigration raid. In Southern California, a 19-year-old and a minor child were left behind after their father was arrested at a gas station.
“Certainly there is a better way to implement their policies in a way that does not separate families or put older children in positive situations,” said Renee Garcia, “the director of Communications of legal aid in non-legal aid. “I think that it is completely traumatizing for a child to be put in that situation.”
“It’s crazy, what we’re witnessing in this country,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, Director of Communications of the Los Angeles Commentary (Chirla), an advocacy organization. “It’s not going to happen.”
Avalos said she hopes her son will be back home soon. “My son is a good, quiet, strong man. He works in the restaurant industry and he just got his new job. And he is everything he does.
“He’s the best father. And his little girl follows him everywhere he goes. But she’s safe now. I need her father.”