The 18-year-old and her mother — Elsy Noemi Berrios, 52 — planned to ride to work together, which happened daily in the month of March. Cruz Berrios recently started as a seamstress where her mom had worked for the past five years.

But March 31 was different for Cruz Berrios.

Their car on a street in Westminster was suddenly surrounded by ICE agents, with at least one wearing a face covering. The agents didn’t present a warrant, according to Cruz Berrios. They shouted orders at the mother to get out of the car.

The mother and daughter believed the agents had been after her undocumented mother. That’s because ICE officers previously came to the family’s Westminster home twice but were denied entry each time.

“They didn’t have a warrant. They knew their rights. ICE went away,” said Halle Blitzstein, the mother’s Baltimore-based attorney.

“I don’t need to show you the order,” an officer said in Spanish. Most of the video includes the officer speaking in Spanish, but the voice was barely audible in the video because the car window was partially rolled up.

“I’m not going to give you the order, it’s in the car,” the officer said just before the mother was taken from the car.

“No!” the daughter screamed. “You guys cannot take her just because you want to.”

The government said that Berrios’ apprehension was driven in part because she is an associate of the violent gang MS-13, which has Salvadoran roots.

“Americans can rest assured that she is off our streets and locked up. I hope the media will stop doing the bidding of these gangs that murder, maim, rape, and terrorize Americans, while ignoring the innocent victims,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote in an email. McLaughlin did not respond to a request for details of Berrios’ alleged gang behavior.

Cruz Berrios and her mother’s attorney vehemently deny that Berrios has a connection to gang membership.

  • @Ep1cFac3pa1m@lemmy.world
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    20821 days ago

    If you can’t assume you’ll get due process, people are going to decide whether to defend themselves when their rights are being violated. Honestly it’s going to make being a cop less safe.

    • @pivot_root@lemmy.world
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      2521 days ago

      A bleak truth, but the first time that happens is going to be the last time that happens.

      Once an ICE agent gets shot for trying to disappear someone out of their own home or car, they’ll start disappearing people with guns drawn and a finger over the trigger. Innocent people are going to get killed, and the agents won’t be held accountable because it was “self-defence”.

    • @gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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      1421 days ago

      My money’s on orangeboi invoking the insurrection act the first time some serious resistance (read: an ICE agent gets plinked) to this secret police shit happens. They’re doing this in large part to trigger a reaction, imo, and when they get a reaction they’re gonna just go “BDJEKDNEEKENJE ALL THE BROWN PEOPLE AND WOKE PEOPLE AND LIBS ARE TERRORISTS REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” and then it’s open season.

    • @foggy@lemmy.world
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      10421 days ago

      Genuinely surprised it hasn’t happened yet

      They must not be apprehending very dangerous people.

      • Cyborganism
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        1621 days ago

        It’s much easier than arresting an actual armed MS-13 gang member. /s

      • @Ep1cFac3pa1m@lemmy.world
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        5621 days ago

        Kinda my thinking, too.

        If I know I’m going to see a judge, I might not force the issue if I think a cop is violating my rights. I’ll wait until the hearing and go from there. If I can’t count on seeing a judge, does it become my job to defend my rights?

        • @arrow74@lemm.ee
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          3821 days ago

          Especially when the alternative is being sent to a Gulag in El Salvador where you will either die or spend the next decade in squalor.

            • BlackRing
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              921 days ago

              Change, rights, progress, come from and are reinforced out of four boxes. Soap box. Ballot box. Jury box. Cartridge box.

              We are at jury box, it seems. I really hope the tide turns and we start winning. That last box is terrifying.

      • @saltesc@lemmy.world
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        2521 days ago

        But didn’t you hear? The 52 seamstress was a notable MS-13 player. ICE are so brave…or MS-13 has gone real downhill…or, ya know, it’s neither of that…

        But American citizens are now completely under the thumb to Kremlin-style narrative. It’s not like anyone’s going to react

        Now you’re under control and now you do what they told you. Every. Time. It’s too easy!

      • greenfire
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        1121 days ago

        ICE only goes after the most vicious, violent & inked seamstresses on their way to work with their daughters

    • @Master@lemm.ee
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      621 days ago

      What do you think will happen when someone defends the self with deadly force? Do you think these people will stop or do you think that person will end poorly?

  • dohpaz42
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    13521 days ago

    “gang associations” is ICE’s version of “I smell marijuana”.

    Unironically, ICE, DHS, and any “law enforcement” agency is ‘Murica are the real gangs.

  • @pleasegoaway@lemm.ee
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    12821 days ago

    So they wouldn’t let ICE inside their house to search for the grandmother, correct?

    And then days later, ICE suddenly decides that the mom and granddaughter have “gang ties”, correct?

    Riiiiiiiiight. Having “gang ties” is now the equivalent of cops planting a crack pipe on you.

    • @CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7321 days ago

      Gang ties is actually quite genius. Nothing to plant. No evidence required.

      It’s like Whose Line is it Anyway. The crimes are made up and the evidence doesn’t matter.

    • Cyrus Draegur
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      1121 days ago

      ICE are LITERALLY HUMAN TRAFFICKING and LITERALLY ARMED THUGS who LITERALLY WEAR COLORS FOR THEIR ORGANIZATION which is a CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION

      These gangsters should be dealt with like the gangsters they are.

    • greenfire
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      15 days ago

      Doesn’t Trunk wear a deep red gang tie most of the time???

  • NoneOfUrBusiness
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    6921 days ago

    These people need to be shot. I’m not kidding, if they come for a member of your community fucking shoot them; that’s the only way to stop them.

  • @Tortl@lemm.ee
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    2221 days ago

    The only way cops will respect people’s rights is if they’re afraid of what might happen if they violate them. That goes for all people. Power corrupts. Without checks to keep them in line, every cop is corrupt.

  • @Englishgrinn@lemmy.ca
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    11221 days ago

    That woman, is a dangerous gang member? THAT woman? And her screaming, terrified 18-year-old daughter who had the audacity to demand cops show a fucking warrant.

    If you aren’t filled with rage at this point, you’re either evil, or painfully ignorant.

    • masterofn001
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      2921 days ago

      She wasn’t evena gang member.

      She had an ‘association’.

      Like, maybe the evil lady was at some point a co-worker or a neighbor or said hello to a gang member.

      Be on guard, this must stop.

      They will come for tbw associate of the associated next.

      • azuth
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        1821 days ago

        She had an ‘association’.

        Like, maybe the evil lady was at some point a co-worker or a neighbor or said hello to a gang member.

        She had an association, ethnicity. That’s good enough for the right.

      • @dryfter@lemm.ee
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        921 days ago

        Have you seen how old most bikers in the US are? The stigma that most bikers are in a gang is stupid but there are SOME bikers who are seniors and who are in something like Hell’s Angels.

        Also, I’ve seen TV shows where they depict the grandmother as a sweet innocent lady who was actually the drug runner for the gang. It’s plausible.

        That being said, there needs to be…I don’t know…actual evidence that she’s a part of said gang to justify this insanity.

        • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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          1521 days ago

          Sure, plausible …… smash her window and drag her out of her car with no warrant, no exigent circumstances, just a verbal claim that sounds like a pretense these days …. Insanity is right

        • @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          20 days ago

          that being said

          Man, fuck off. Why did you think that needed to be said, really?

          “Old people are in gangs on TV. I’m JK though, this is actually bad.”

          Wow great addition to the conversation.

  • @ProfHillbilly@lemmy.world
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    1820 days ago

    ICE are nothing but Brown Shirts doing the bidding of the Mango Mussolini. This is disgusting and when are we going to do something about this. My congress-monkey is part of the problem so not matter how much I complain to him nothing will get done.

  • qevlarr
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    821 days ago

    I’m not American. Their uniforms say police. Are ICE agents police? How do you recognize them? Do you have the same rights with police or ICE?

    • @4am@lemm.ee
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      1121 days ago

      You are supposed to have the same rights regardless of the authoritative agency.

      However when it comes down to it, it’s guys with guns vs normal people.

      If this ever ends we should send all these ICE agents to El Salvador.

    • @huppakee@lemm.ee
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      221 days ago

      From Wikipedia:

      The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

      So they more like FBI than local police or state troopers, but I’m not American either so

  • @MehBlah@lemmy.world
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    3021 days ago

    Any unbelievable excuse will do. Its always unbelievable because they always make up lies about the people they abuse.

  • @gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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    1721 days ago

    “I didn’t know they could do something like that — especially when you hadn’t done anything,” her daughter said.

    What an awful thing to have to learn