By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams

 

A family in Leominster, Massachusetts is accusing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of holding a 5-year-old autistic girl outside their home last week in an attempt to pressure her immigrant father to surrender to federal authorities.

 

Footage of the incident was published Monday by NBCUniversal’s Spanish-language Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra. The video shows the little girl seated outside an open vehicle, drinking from a water bottle while surrounded by law enforcement.

 

That ICE would try to hold hostage a parent’s love for a child to force a father’s arrest and detention is abhorrent.”
Joanna Kuebler, America’s Voice

 

In the video, a man can be heard shouting “Don’t touch her!” and a woman identified as the girl’s mother tells one agent that the others took her daughter, who is 5 years old and on the autism spectrum. She also says, “Give me my daughter back.”

 

The mother, who did not want her name shared, told Telemundo that her husband, 22-year-old Edward Hip, called her while driving with their daughter because he thought they were being followed. When they tried to return home, agents grabbed the child.

 

The video shows agents trying to get Hip to come outside the house to show them identification. The mother told Telemundo that during the incident, which occurred last Tuesday, the agents threatened to enter their home.

 

According to NBC Boston, “Leominster police arrived at the scene, recovered the child, and returned her to the family.”

 

Neither parent was taken into custody that day. However, two days later, on his wife’s birthday, ICE returned to their home, pulled Hip out of a car, and arrested him, she said. He is now being held at a detention center in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

 

NBC Boston reported that Hip and his wife, who are from Guatemala, “have an active asylum claim and are the parents of two children born in the United States.”

 

The family’s experience is part of an attempt by ICE to deliver on US President Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportations.

 

While ICE has not responded to Telemundo‘s request for comment, the footage has sparked swift outrage, with critics across the United States and beyond condemning agents’ treatment of the family as “fascism,” ”truly evil,” and ”a f***ing abomination.”

 

Joanna Kuebler, chief of programs at the advocacy group America’s Voice, said in a Tuesday statement: “That ICE would try to hold hostage a parent’s love for a child to force a father’s arrest and detention is abhorrent. This visceral event is just another frightening example of a broader and deeply disturbing pattern by this administration.”

 

“The combination of cruelty and impunity in pursuit of a mass deportation crusade is dangerous for America and all of our safety,” Kuebler added. “Smashing car windows, ripping families apart, and traumatizing children threatens the public safety of American communities and the stability of our nation.”

 

 

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams. This article is republished from Common Dreams under a Creative Commons license.