LA Immigration Arrest: Daughter Separated From Father – Video

Immigrant rights activists were nearby, filming and shouting at the officers, who were masked and heavily armed. But the situation, which occurred on Tuesday, took an unexpected turn, according to interviews with four witnesses and images shared with The New York Times by an immigrant rights group, with the permission of the person who recorded them.

Quiñonez was taken to another vehicle. An armed officer got into the driver’s seat of his car.

“There’s a baby in the backseat!” shouted one person. Minutes later, someone exclaimed, “They’re going to drive!”

Another agent, wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a rifle, got into the passenger seat. Quiñonez’s daughter — who, according to later reports from family members, was just a few months away from turning two years old — watched everything, wide-eyed, from her car seat. Then the driver reversed and drove away.

The girl met her grandmother on the same day. But immigrant rights groups say the episode highlights how federal agents across the country have gone beyond the bounds of the law, sometimes in the presence of children, as they carry out the Trump administration’s agenda of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants.

In September, an immigration agent pushed a shell-shocked woman to the ground in a New York courtroom as her two young children cried and tried to help her. The agent was later “relieved of his duties” pending an investigation, but it was not clear whether he was fired or disciplined.

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This week in Chicago, where federal agents’ tactics have come under legal scrutiny, parents said their children were traumatized when they saw agents detain their daycare teacher during check-in hours.

It is unclear whether Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has a policy on how to deal with minor children at the site of an arrest or detention. However, agents from ICE, a separate agency within the Department of Homeland Security, are not supposed to take a detainee’s child, according to ICE policy. Local law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles County have similar policies that require officers to call a social worker.

Terrie Samundra, a mother of two who witnessed agents in Los Angeles drive away with Quiñonez’s daughter in her car, was shocked by what she saw.

“It was unbelievable to be witnessing that,” she said. “And I’ve seen a lot.” Terrie is part of a collective of local activists patrolling the Home Depot parking lot in the Cypress Park neighborhood of Los Angeles to document immigration raids.

On Thursday, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in an email that Quiñonez was to blame for what happened to her daughter because he took her to a place where there was “violence against law enforcement.” The agency said in a statement Wednesday that he attacked officers with a hammer and throwing objects, although he was never charged with assault, and that a gun was found in his car.

“It is a shame that the father put the child in that environment and then left him alone in the car,” Tricia wrote.

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According to a sworn statement from federal authorities, Quiñonez, a 32-year-old American citizen, was charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition because he had a previous conviction for domestic violence. He was convicted of a misdemeanor count of injuring a spouse or domestic partner in 2014, according to the statement.

Quiñonez was held at a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles until Thursday afternoon, when he was released on $10,000 bail. His evidentiary hearing is scheduled for December 1st.

Tuesday’s events began when Customs and Border Protection agents arrested five undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Federal authorities said in the affidavit that Quiñonez got out of the car holding a hammer “in a threatening manner” about 30 meters from the agents. As officers began to drive away, they said they saw Quiñonez throw two “rock-like” objects at the vehicle before returning to his own car. After a team of agents surrounded Quiñonez’s car, he got out and approached the agents, who said they believed he had tried to attack them. Quiñonez’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

Tricia did not respond to questions about the officers fleeing in Quiñonez’s car with the child inside. She also did not respond to questions about how the child was cared for while in federal agents’ custody, including where she was kept and whether she was fed, given water or had her diaper changed.

Quiñonez did not want to be separated from her daughter and initially authorized the agents to drive her car with both of them to another location, away from the crowd that was forming, according to federal authorities. But after finding a gun on the passenger side floorboard, they decided to transport Quiñonez in a CBP vehicle.

About half an hour after Quiñonez’s arrest, his mother received a call from an unknown number, she told reporters on Wednesday. Federal authorities told her to pick up her granddaughter outside the federal detention center. She said she was allowed to see her granddaughter there, but was not allowed to leave with the girl until around 1 p.m., after presenting authorities with the child’s birth certificate.

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Quiñonez’s mother, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Maria, for fear of reprisals against her family, said through tears that her son is a loving father. She said that he had taken her daughter to the Home Depot store on his day off from work in the restaurant business and that she did not know what led to his arrest. Maria said her granddaughter appeared to be healthy and behaving normally after the incident. She’s too young to talk, the grandmother said, but the child was calling for her “daddy.”

The Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration in Southern California is a joint operation by multiple agencies, including agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). According to ICE policy, agents must attempt to allow a detained adult to make alternative care arrangements for any child in their custody. If this is not possible, officers should remain at the arrest site until representatives from a local child protective agency or law enforcement arrive to take custody of the child.

“Unless ICE is taking coercive action against the minor child(ren), ICE employees should not, under any circumstances, take custody of or transport the minor child(ren),” the policy says.

Tricia, the DHS spokeswoman, did not respond to questions about whether CBP policy differs or whether the agents involved in Tuesday’s arrest followed their own protocols. John Sandweg, a former Department of Homeland Security official during the Obama administration, said the agency’s actions in the Quiñonez case appear to “violate common sense.”