Community members in Worcester, Massachusetts on Thursday got word that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other federal officers were in a residential neighborhood, and more than two dozen quickly came to the scene to stop the arrest of a woman who was being separated from her teenage daughter and infant grandchild.
They were met with force from not only the government agents but also local police.
ICE agents were reportedly waiting outside a home on Eureka Street to arrest a woman who is of Brazilian descent, and intercepted her, her 16-year-old daughter, the daughter's newborn baby, and another family member as they were about to get into a vehicle.
Calling the arrest "a federal kidnapping," local independent reporter Bill Shaner reported at Welcome to Hell World that he arrived on the scene with a video camera after ICE agents informed Worcester police on the city police scanner that they were being "surrounded," and found a harrowing scene:
"I park my car on the edge of the scene and all I can hear are the screams—the deafening desperate screams, from a mother, from her daughter, from the woman holding the daughter's baby. Wordless screams.
"And then I see the mother, a young woman in a green shirt, wailing, crying, held on either side by menacing white men in tactical vests, black neck warmers pulled over their noses in the style du jour for our secret police forces.
"Surrounding them are a few dozen community members who were tipped off about the ICE raid and got to it before the police did."
The neighbors demanded to see a warrant for the woman's arrest but were ignored by the ICE agents. They formed a "human chain" to stop the officers from detaining the woman in an unmarked vehicle, but the agents broke through and marched her toward the van.
Shaner reported that Worcester Police Department officers stepped in when the woman's teenage daughter jumped on the hood of the car to stop her mother's forced removal. A police officer pulled her off as community members shouted, "Don't take the mother!"
The daughter then briefly got away from the officers who were holding her and ran down the street, but was caught by a group of police who tackled her to the ground as she screamed. They then arrested her on four charges including reckless endangerment of a child, disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.
Neighbors tried to appeal to the local police officers, but were repeatedly told: "This is ICE. This is federal."
One community member said the agents were "trying to kidnap someone" and another said again that the federal officers did not have a warrant.
"They don't need a warrant," a police officer finally replied.
Etel Haxhiaj, a city councilor, was among the community members trying to stop the ICE arrest, and called the agents "cowards" as they walked the mother toward the unmarked car.
"This is an innocent woman," she said.
In a statement after the mother and daughter were arrested, Haxhiaj said that "as an elected official, it is my obligation to stand up for my constituents. The way immigrants in Worcester and across the csommonwealth are being targeted and terrorized by this federal administration for deportation is absolutely unconstitutional."
Haxhiaj also spoke to a Worcester police officer after the ordeal, telling him that chasing and arresting the 16-year-old girl who was trying to stop the arrest of her mother was "unnecessary."
"All you had to do was just have one of us hold her and contain her," she said. "You didn't have to take her."
Shaner noted that in a statement in January as President Donald Trump took office, having pledged to launch a nationwide mass deportation operation, Worcester Police Chief Paul Saucier told city councilors that the department would not participate in ICE operations.
"We do not do civil detention arrests," he said.
But police in the city can still stop community members from trying to intercept a civil arrest, Shaner said.
Police also arrested a school board candidate, Ashley Spring, for allegedly throwing "an unknown liquid substance" at officers. She was charged with assault and battery on a police officer, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct, and interfering with a police officer.
Matt Szafranski, editor-in-chief of Western Mass Politics and Insight, said that "we are going to see more" of the kind of resistance Worcester residents showed on Thursday.
"I think what's interesting is ICE is not prepared to deal with it," he said. "They think they have impunity, but civil disobedience is only going to grow."
"Worcester Police Department has explaining to do, but local cops are going to be put in bad situations if ICE keeps acting like this," Szafranski added. "Is it 'assisting ICE' to keep the peace? Well, yes in a basic sense. But who's causing the disturbance?"