A New Bedford couple approached by immigration authorities said they wouldn’t get out of their vehicle until their lawyer arrived. Agents broke the window to force their way in.
A Guatemalan immigrant was arrested by federal immigration agents, who smashed through a car window while he was inside with his wife in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on Monday, according to the woman, his lawyer and a local immigration advocate.
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The couple were recording the arrest on their cellphones, while they waited for their lawyer to arrive, when the agents broke the window with a steel pickaxe to get the man, Juan Francisco Mendez, out.
"They unjustly pulled us out of the car… three of them, thinking my husband was going to flee or run away," said man's wife, Marilu Domingo Ortiz, in Spanish.
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Mendez and his wife were out for a dentist appointment when they were detained by ICE and FBI agents, Domingo Ortiz said, adding that the agents "left without saying why they arrested my husband."
Confused about why he was being detained, Mendez tried to exercise his rights, and can be heard in the video saying, "My lawyer is on the way."
In the video, ICE agents repeatedly ask him to get out of the car or roll down the window so they could talk. The couple replied, "What do you want? We have rights too." One of the agents pulls out the axe to break the window.
Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra and NBC10 Boston reached out to ICE for comment, but have not yet received a response.
The arrest occurred on this street, though Domingo Ortiz and Mendez' lawyer claimed the agents were asking for someone else and arrested Mendez anyway.
Domingo Ortiz said the agents asked for someone named Antonio: "My husband said no, that his name isn't Antonio, and they asked him again if you were Antonio in the building where we were living."
Mendez' lawyer, Ondine Gálvez, said he shouldn't have been taken into custody, as his immigration status was about to change.
"Agents could have easily confirmed what his status was and they would have seen that he was in the process of legalizing his status and therefore there wouldn't have been any justification for them to take him into custody," Gálvez said.
Mendez arrived from Guatemala two years ago and has an asylum case, with no criminal record or deportation order, the lawyer said.
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On Tuesday, his family waited in anguish for what will happen next.
"I feel that pain, and it's anguish to see my son asking where his father is and who is now coming," Domingo Ortiz said.
Adrian Ventura, director of New Bedford immigrant advocacy group Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, said agents have been "acting quite aggressively toward our community and are no longer respectful."
He told NBC affiliate WJAR that he saw the car's window being broken.
Gálvez called the agents' response "brutally violent," adding, "I understand that's how they are responding today."
She said she hopes Mendez will be released on bail.
