With her hands clenched, her fingers restless and her knee trembling with nerves, Danny, a 13-year-old girl, recounted in a muffled voice the moment immigration agents took her father away on a street in Queens.
Her cries for her father were mixed with the desperate pleas of her mother, who, crying, begged the agents that there must be a mistake, that her husband’s case was not yet closed.
Danny’s family—whose last name we are not publishing due to the sensitive nature of the case—came to the United States from Venezuela, fleeing violence. But, according to the girl, her father’s detention by ICE has been the most traumatic moment of her life.
The incident occurred in Maspeth, Queens, on October 18, when the family was out to dinner on a Saturday night. Suddenly, several ICE agents appeared and put the father into an unmarked vehicle in front of his crying wife and daughter.
Danny recalled that they were traveling in the car with his mother and father, near the corner of 59th Street and 56th Avenue, around 5:40 pm, when his father noticed some men taking photos of the vehicle.
“My dad got out of the car and went to ICE. He asked them, ‘What’s wrong?’ and they asked for his identification. He gave them to them, and then they said he couldn’t stay in the United States, that they were going to take him, and they took him. They didn’t care about me,” Danny said.
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In a video recorded by the girl and shared with our sister publication, amNewYork, armed agents are seen pushing her mother, Mirla, when she was trying to open the door of the ICE vehicle to speak with her husband.
“Why are you pushing my mom? Don’t touch her! I love you, dad!” Danny is heard shouting through tears.
One of the officers threatened to arrest the mother if she tried to open the door again.
“If your mom does that again, we’re going to have to arrest her. She can’t open the door,” he told her.
In the video, another agent is also heard telling Mirla that her husband did not have the documents to remain in the country. She responded that her husband did have legal status.
“It was denied. I checked the system,” the agent responded.
Days after the arrest, Mirla told amNewYork that her husband was taken to 26 Federal Plaza, where ICE maintains a temporary detention center, despite a court order prohibiting holding large groups of immigrants there. He was then transferred to New Jersey.
Through tears, Mirla said she now fears for her family’s future.
“It’s very difficult. He was the one who did everything for us,” she said, sobbing. “I have two children. He paid the rent, the car insurance, the food, everything. Now the landlady asks me what I’m going to do, and I don’t know what to answer.”
Danny said that, with his father detained, his mother has started cleaning houses to pay the bills, and that she accompanies her to help.
“My mother works cleaning houses every day, and I accompany her. This has affected me a lot because he is my father, my life. I love him very much and I want him to come back, I miss him too much,” she said.
Mirla is now looking for a lawyer to help her with her husband’s case, but, like many immigrant families in similar situations, she cannot afford one.
