Federal agents caught and detained a 5-year-old girl to lure her immigrant father outside the family's home following a brief traffic pursuit, according to a report.
Video of the incident Tuesday in Leominster, Massachusetts, captures the family's anguished screams as Immigration and Customs Enforcement held the 5-year-old girl outside after chasing her father, Edward Hip, a Guatemalan man who has lived in the U.S. for 22 years, reported WBTS-CD.
"Is that your daughter? Come here so I can see those IDs," one of the agents said, according to the video.
The girl's mother tells the agents her daughter is on the autism spectrum and begs for her return, saying agents had grabbed the girl as she followed her father inside.
"Hey, I can give [the ID] through the door," Hip offers, but an agent orders him to come outside.
The mother called police and reported harassment by the ICE agents, and officers came to the scene and returned the child to her family.
"[ICE agents] threatened us, saying that if we didn't open the door within 15 minutes, they would enter the house," the mother told Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra.
However, federal agents returned to the house two days later, pulled Hip from his car and arrested him, and he's now being held at an ICE detention center in Plymouth.
"Officers came out behind my house, arrested him, took him away," his wife said. "We are not criminals."
Both Hip and his wife have an active asylum claim and are the parents of two children born in the U.S., and a neighbor questioned the actions of the immigration agents who held the girl and arrested her father.
"The use of bounty hunters and officers without a warrant (should) be investigated," said friend and neighbor Lizeth Román. "They had them cornered. We don't know if they're still there right now. They came out from behind the house, got in through there, and tried to get into our window."
Familia hispana denuncia que agentes de ICE retuvieron a su hija de 5 años para realizar arresto www.nbcboston.com
En una grabación obtenida por Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra, se escuchan los gritos de angustia de la familia mientras intentan recuperar a la niña.