Legal immigrant mother blasts ICE after agents smashed window, ‘traumatized’ her family
Two teenage American citizens and their mother, an immigrant legally residing in the U.S. for two decades, filed a lawsuit Monday against immigration agents who they said "illegally and forcefully detained" them outside a Boston area courthouse this fall.
The family said they were accompanying a family member to a court hearing in Chelsea when a group of agents boxed in their car and, without identifying themselves as police, smashed the vehicle's windows and dragged the 50-year-old mother from the driver's seat.
The mother, Hilda Ramirez Sanan, said the agents pushed her to the ground face-first, giving her a concussion. Her children, including a 13-year-old on the autism spectrum, were questioned by the immigration officials and left "traumatized" by the encounter, Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston nonprofit legal organization representing the family, said Monday .
"My family is broken and will never be the same," Ramirez Sanan said in a statement through the legal group. "I don't know how to explain to my children why ICE treated us this way. I am still in daily pain from my injuries."
"The incident reflects an alarming pattern of brazenly illegal and aggressive ICE operations in Massachusetts, where federal immigration officers are increasingly using force and arresting people indiscriminately without following well-established law, including their own standards of enforcement," Lawyers for Civil Rights said.
The encounter was captured on video. Lawyers for Civil Rights published clips alongside its complaint Monday.
On the morning of Sept. 26, Ramirez Sanan and her children were in their car in front of the Chelsea District Court when multiple unmarked vehicles quickly surrounded them, Ramirez Sanan's complaint said.
About eight masked officers swarmed the vehicle and smashed in the driver's side windows. They did not give the occupants a chance to cooperate or provide identification, Ramirez Sanan said.
The immigration agents pulled Ramirez Sanan, 50, from the vehicle, twisted her arms behind her back to handcuff her and pushed her to the ground. Agents questioned her distressed son about his legal status, and one agent "threatened to arrest the 13-year-old if he did not answer or produce proof of legal status, despite his age, obvious distress, and disability," Lawyers for Civil Rights said.
ICE officers attempted to take Ramirez Sanan into custody, the complaint claims, but released her after Chelsea Police officers asked that they check her legal status first.
Ramirez Sanan said she suffered a concussion, bruising and "a painful radial nerve palsy" from when agents pulled her arm back to handcuff her. The 13-year-old boy has had lasting emotional trauma, the complaint said.
The family was also left on the hook to repair the damage ICE officers dealt to their car, they said.
"The extreme and senseless cruelty invoked on longstanding Chelsea residents in the heart of their community should shock and alarm all of us," Jillian Lenson, a senior attorney for Lawyers for Civil Rights, said in a statement. "The ICE officers did not even identify themselves, let alone provide an explanation or warrant, before violently assaulting the family. The behavior was illegal, shameless, and inhumane. The family deserves justice."
Lawyers for Civil Rights said the complaint, sent Monday to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is a "required precursor" to an upcoming lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Boston.
More stories on immigration
Read the original article on MassLive . Add MassLive as a Preferred Source by clicking here .
