Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were filmed pointing guns at an “illegal immigrant family,” including a mother holding her three-month-old baby, during a raid at their home in Gresham, Oregon, United States, on Wednesday night. Footage shared on social media shows ICE agents forcing their way into the family’s apartment, about 17 miles from Portland. The video captures the moment officers kicked in a bedroom door and shouted: “Police, don’t move, hands up.”
When agents entered the room, the child, who was in Magana’s arms, was heard crying off camera. “This is unfair, they scared my child,” Magana wrote in her Facebook post. “We are not criminals to be treated like this, much less have guns pointed at us.
Family “traumatized”
Gloria Bautista, the child’s grandmother, said The Independent that her daughter was deeply shaken by the incident.
“The mother is so traumatized that anything that scares her, she’s shaking all the time,” Bautista said.
Two male relatives were detained by ICE agents during the raid. In the footage, one officer appears to grab the man by the hair and drag him backwards out of the room. Both men were later taken to a detention center in Tacoma, Washington.
ICE Says Operation Targeted ‘Violent Criminal’
A senior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told The Independent that there were “no injuries” during the operation, which was aimed at arresting a “previously removed violent criminal illegal alien from Mexico” who remains at large.
Read also | Trump Admin Offers $1,000 to Illegal Immigrants Who Voluntarily Deport themselves
According to the official, ICE officers attempted to stop the suspect’s vehicle before he allegedly crashed into a US Postal Service van and fled on foot into an apartment.
“After they refused to come out, law enforcement entered the apartment,” the official said, adding that “the target escaped and remains at large. Two other aliens from Mexico were found inside the apartment and taken into ICE custody.”
Magana told Noticias Noroeste NW that ICE agents tried to enter the property for several hours before forcing entry. One officer could be heard on the video telling her, “Why don’t you put the phone down, we’re at your house right now.”
The family says the two detained men are in the country legally.
Support and fundraising efforts
Ashley Valdez, who identified herself as Magana’s cousin, started a GoFundMe page to raise funds for legal support.
Valdez wrote that the agents “came in force with guns pointed at them” and that the mother “feared for her newborn child.”
Read also | Trump crackdown on migrants: Will the American dream get worse for Indians?
“Her daughter was present and caught everything on camera as she was worried about her three-month-old newborn, what was going to happen next,” Valdez said.
GoFundMe confirmed the authenticity of the campaign to The Independent. Valdez added, “These people are not criminals. They are hard working people, they don’t deserve this.”
Tensions over immigration enforcement in Portland
The raid comes at a time of heightened tension between federal authorities and local leaders in Oregon. The Trump administration has repeatedly pushed for the deployment of the National Guard to Portland as part of its anti-crime efforts, though federal judges have blocked the move.
Former President Donald Trump has previously described the liberal city as “torn by war” as clashes continue between anti-immigration protesters and federal agents outside Portland’s ICE facility.
