ProPublica investigation finds nearly 50 cases of immigration agents smashing car windows
The practices deployed by federal immigration officers to implement President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, such as making arrests at immigration proceedings and agents wearing masks and plain clothes, have come under scrutiny and raised due process concerns. Now, a new tactic has come to light: smashing car windows.Â
An investigation by ProPublica has revealed nearly 50 instances of officers shattering windows while conducting immigration-related arrests in the last six months. Although not comprehensive and hard to verify without government statistics, only eight occurrences were found in the decade preceding Trump’s return to office. The uptick in window destruction coincides with growing uneasiness around how federal agents conduct themselves—and how aggressive behavior may even be rewarded within the Trump administration.Â
“There’s been an emphasis placed on speed and numbers that did not exist before,” Deborah Fleischaker, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) chief of staff under Joe Biden, told ProPublica. The Trump administration increased the immigration arrest quota from 1,000 to 3,000 arrests per day in May.
The instances compiled by ProPublica provide accounts of immigration officers smashing car windows—sometimes multiple—with various tools, including batons and sledgehammers, to unlock and open vehicle doors. “At least 10 people have said they were injured this year during broken-windows arrests,” reported ProPublica. One 49-year-old woman described being pulled through the window that an ICE agent had broken, causing jagged cuts on her forearms.Â
American citizens have also been implicated during these forceful arrests. In a since-deleted Facebook Live video, agents pulled over Jennifer Gribben, a U.S. citizen, and her boyfriend Martin Rivera (ProPublica did not note his citizenship status), and told them they were l
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