Federal agents busted into an Elmhurst apartment early last Thursday morning and pointed guns at a woman and her four children, according to video and an account from the family.
The agents were looking for a cousin who hadn’t lived in the apartment for years, Jennifer, the 33-year-old mother of four told THE CITY, which is withholding her last name as the family fears retaliation. The four children are all U.S. citizens.
When the agents entered the apartment, they dragged Jennifer by her hair and pointed an assault rifle at her 13-year-old daughter.
“Put your fucking hands up, stupid,” one agent can be heard yelling, in a brief video Jennifer captured before her phone was knocked from her hand. That video and other surveillance footage of the Nov. 13 predawn raid was first shared with THE CITY by the New York Immigration Coalition.
“I have my baby, I have my kids. What the fuck!” Jennifer yells back, referring to her 2-year-old who she was holding at the time. “Don’t touch me.”
The agents questioned the family about the cousin’s whereabouts for about an hour and left without making any arrests.
They did not identify themselves, according to the family, or show Jennifer a warrant, though it’s not clear if they had one. Surveillance camera footage showed the agents in tactical gear, with assault rifles and helmets. One agent bore a riot shield that read U.S. Marshal, and another agent wore a neckgator with the letters “ICE” on it. Spokespeople for the U.S. Marshals, which have been deputized to carry out immigration enforcement actions, and the Department of Homeland Security didn’t return requests for comment on the raid right away.
Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, slammed the raid.
“ICE continues to operate as a rogue agency that is lawlessly terrorizing New Yorkers,” Awawdeh said. “This family has been incredibly traumatized by what feels like a home invasion. I don’t know in what world that would be acceptable.”
Federal immigration agents wore tactical gear before breaking into a Queens home and pointing a gun a woman and her four children. Credit: Screengrab via Security Footage
The raid has rattled Jennifer’s four young children, ages 2, 6, 10 and 13, who were sleeping early Thursday morning when agents started circling the house and banging on the doors and windows for about 30 minutes, yelling at them to open the doors, before they eventually burst in.
“I didn’t open, my kids were terrified,” Jennifer recalled in Spanish. She immigrated from Mexico as a teenager and is a DACA applicant shielded from deportation. “I didn’t know what to tell them.”
Once inside, Jennifer’s oldest daughter, 13-year-old Jayleane, recounted the agents telling her to put her hands up and pointing a long rifle at her.
“It was big, I didn’t know what to do. I was trying to help my mom,” she said, shaking, as tears streamed down her cheeks describing the encounter. “I saw they were pulling her hair. They had the gun in front of me. I was scared.”
The agents demanded information about a cousin who had moved out of the apartment more than two years ago, Jennifer said. An agent showed her a picture of him and asked where he was. Jennifer replied that she didn’t know his current address, as they’d fallen out of touch, adding she thought he moved to Pennsylvania.
“What is the status of the kids? Are they illegal?” she recalled the agents asking her. She replied they were born in the United States. “If you don’t cooperate I’m going to call ACS, and your kids are going to go with them, and you go to your country,” one of the officers told her.
Eventually they made Jennifer text and call her cousin, who picked up on the second call and agreed to surrender to them at her apartment in the coming days. Agents left the house, promising to return the next week to look for the cousin again.
At some point during the commotion, an NYPD cruiser rolled by the apartment. Surveillance video showed the NYPD officers speaking with the agents out front, then leaving the area.
Ron Kuby, a civil rights attorney working with the family, said a more proactive mayoral administration could require NYPD officers write down names and badge numbers of the federal officers if and when they come across situations like the one in Elmhurst. That way if anything goes array at least there’s a record of who was there. Last week police were also called to the scene of an arrest by ICE in Washington Heights and were injured in the commotion, Gothamist reported.
“It’s well within the NYPD’s mandate,” Kuby said. “That would be a good first step, rather than exchanging bro hugs.”
The children haven’t returned to school since last Thursday, too afraid to leave their mother’s side. One night the kids spent wrapped up in blankets together in bed. Now the family is staying in a hotel, scared the agents might return.
“My children are really affected, they’re terrified,” Jennfier said. Her 6-year-old daughter Leslie asked what the right way to put your hands up was when a gun was pointed at you, and she told her mother she didn’t want to go to school.
“I have to be here when they come, to defend you,” she told her mother.
Rigoberto, Jennifer’s husband, was at work at the time of the raid, and wracked with guilt he wasn’t there to protect his family, he told THE CITY in Spanish. He heard about recent ICE sightings in the neighborhood and had seen people passing out know-your-rights materials in recent days, but hadn’t paid it any mind, never imagining it would affect the family.
“I’ve been working in the same restaurant for 24 years, I’ve never done anything wrong. My wife has been here for 17 years,” he said. “We never imagined anything like this would happen.”
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