‘Treated like an animal’: Chelsea family sues ICE for taking father in front of children

A Chelsea family filed a complaint against federal immigration enforcement officials Thursday, alleging that they were violently attacked on their way to church on Mother’s Day. ICE agents smashed the window of a vehicle the family was driving in and detained a man who they say is an undocumented immigrant. 

The complaint, filed on behalf of the family by attorneys with the Boston-based nonprofit Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), is a required precursor to a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court. The incident, which was captured on video, traumatized the family’s three children and reflected a larger pattern of aggressive behavior by ICE agents in Massachusetts, the lawyers said. 

A short clip of the interaction was posted online by LCR. It depicts five agents using a tool to break a window on the passenger side of an SUV and pulling out a man, Daniel Flores-Martinez. He can then be seen being brought to the ground and handcuffed as his wife, Kenia Guerrero, pleads with agents. 

“What are you looking for?” she asks. “You can’t do this to him in front of my kids.” 

Watch the video below:

“This family was targeted, traumatized, and torn apart without cause,” Victoria Miranda, a senior attorney at Lawyers for Civil Rights, said in a statement. “The government’s brutality on Mother’s Day in front of children was not only unconstitutional — it was inhumane. We demand that the federal government uphold the Constitution and respect the rule of law.” 

An ICE spokesperson told Boston.com Thursday that the agency “does not comment on pending litigation.”

LCR did not provide information about Flores-Martinez’s immigration status in the complaint or in an accompanying release. 

On the morning of May 11, Flores-Martinez took the family’s dog for a walk with his son. He noticed an unmarked vehicle with heavily tinted windows idling on the street and thought that it could be associated with ICE. Later in the walk, that car had been replaced by other unmarked vehicles parked closer to his home, according to the family’s lawyers. 

Later that morning, Flores-Martinez, Guerrero, and their three children aged 3, 12, and 14 got in the SUV to go to church. Within minutes, unmarked vehicles surrounded the SUV and blocked it in every direction. Agents approached the vehicle containing the family. Some were masked and wearing vests that said “police” on them. Others were unmarked, according to LCR. 

After an exchange with the couple, Flores-Martinez rolled down the passenger side window enough to hear the agents and exchange documents. But the officers threatened to break the window, and Guerrero objected. She asked the agents not to act violently in front of her children. They then broke the window, according to the complaint. 

Guerrero was stopped from getting closer to her husband by a female agent. 

“Why are you doing this with my children here?” she asked the agent, according to the complaint. “Aren’t you a mother?”

Flores-Martinez was forced into an unmarked vehicle and driven away. The agents never told Guerrero where her husband was being taken, what agency was detaining him, or why he was being arrested during the initial interaction, according to the complaint. They did not produce a warrant. 

Lawyers representing the family say that Flores-Martinez was not asked to exit the vehicle or given the opportunity to do so peacefully. He stated that he was not resisting as agents pulled him to the ground. 

The three children were all traumatized. The 3-year-old tells others that “police broke the window and threw daddy on the floor.” He refuses to get into the car, associating it with the arrest, and experiences recurring nightmares about the incident. He sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night asking for his father, according to the complaint. 

Another child, who lives with epilepsy, hydrocephalus, and cerebral palsy, is “now at heightened risk of more frequent and intense convulsions” due to the incident negatively affecting her physical and emotional state, according to the complaint. 

Lawyers for the family allege that ICE could have planned to detain Flores-Martinez under other circumstances, but “deliberately” waited until he was in a vehicle with his family. The agents violated the family’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights and ignored federal regulations for ICE enforcement, the family alleges. The complaint seeks $1 million in damages. 

The incident is one example of increasingly heavy-handed tactics being deployed by ICE agents throughout Massachusetts, including smashing windows elsewhere. Agents routinely cover their faces while operating in public, which federal officials say is necessary to prevent them and their families from being targeted online. Others, including prominent leaders like Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, say the agents are operating like “secret police” and should not be hiding their identities. 

ICE leaders recently announced that they had arrested close to 1,500 undocumented immigrants over the past month in Massachusetts, and promised that they would not slow down. Meanwhile, communities like Chelsea are suing the federal government over its attempts to strip funding from them due to their “sanctuary” policies. 

“My children watched as their father was physically attacked, treated like an animal, and ripped away from us,” Guerrero said in a statement. “They have so many questions, but I don’t have the answers. Why would the government tear our family apart like this? No mother should have to explain this kind of cruelty to her children. Our family belongs together. Why hasn’t my husband been released? We need him home.” 

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