\u201cI have my baby, I have my kids. What the fuck!\u201d Jennifer yells back, referring to her 2-year-old who she was holding at the time. \u201cDon\u2019t touch me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agents questioned the family about the cousin\u2019s whereabouts for about an hour and left without making any arrests.<\/p>\n
They did not identify themselves, according to the family, or show Jennifer a warrant, though it\u2019s 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 \u201cICE\u201d on it. Spokespeople for the U.S. Marshals, which have been deputized to carry out immigration enforcement actions<\/a>, and the Department of Homeland Security didn\u2019t return requests for comment on the raid right away.<\/p>\n Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, slammed the raid.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cICE continues to operate as a rogue agency that is lawlessly terrorizing New Yorkers,\u201d Awawdeh said. \u201cThis family has been incredibly traumatized by what feels like a home invasion. I don\u2019t know in what world that would be acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n The raid has rattled Jennifer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t open, my kids were terrified,\u201d Jennifer recalled in Spanish. She immigrated from Mexico as a teenager and is a DACA applicant shielded from deportation. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what to tell them.\u201d<\/p>\n Once inside, Jennifer\u2019s oldest daughter, 13-year-old Jayleane, recounted the agents telling her to put her hands up and pointing a long rifle at her.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was big, I didn\u2019t know what to do. I was trying to help my mom,\u201d she said, shaking, as tears streamed down her cheeks describing the encounter. \u201cI saw they were pulling her hair. They had the gun in front of me. I was scared.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019t know his current address, as they\u2019d fallen out of touch, adding she thought he moved to Pennsylvania.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is the status of the kids? Are they illegal?\u201d she recalled the agents asking her. She replied they were born in the United States. \u201cIf you don\u2019t cooperate I\u2019m going to call ACS, and your kids are going to go with them, and you go to your country,\u201d one of the officers told her.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u2019s 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.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s well within the NYPD\u2019s mandate,\u201d Kuby said. \u201cThat would be a good first step, rather than exchanging bro hugs.\u201d<\/p>\n The children haven\u2019t returned to school since last Thursday, too afraid to leave their mother\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \u201cMy children are really affected, they\u2019re terrified,\u201d 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\u2019t want to go to school.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI have to be here when they come, to defend you,\u201d she told her mother.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rigoberto, Jennifer\u2019s husband, was at work at the time of the raid, and wracked with guilt he wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t paid it any mind, never imagining it would affect the family.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been working in the same restaurant for 24 years, I\u2019ve never done anything wrong. My wife has been here for 17 years,\u201d he said. \u201cWe never imagined anything like this would happen.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal agents busted into an Elmhurst apartment early last Thursday morning and pointed guns at a woman and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-45072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Federal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ice_home_raid.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n