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.

  • @[email protected]
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    13 months ago

    Is it illegal to walk around in a vest that says ICE and such. Like if we all did it, then anyone accosted by the real ICE with no warrant could simply drive away because it would be plausible that it wasn’t an ICE agent.

      • @[email protected]
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        13 months ago

        Would matter if you never claimed to be ICE or anything. Just wore the vest. There must be some legal definition of impersonating.

    • @[email protected]
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      33 months ago

      It’s one of the alphabet agencies. So afaik it’s the same authority as the FBI, CIA, DHS, NSA, IRS, ATF, DEA, that kind of thing

      • @[email protected]
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        13 months ago

        I hope they won’t, if you see how little is done about Gaza after 50,000 deaths. Let’s just cross out fingers mass deportation turns out to be the cheaper solution.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          13 months ago

          Let’s just cross out fingers mass deportation turns out to be the cheaper solution.

          Well, if there’s any positive stereotype about Germans it’s that they are pretty good at efficiencies, and we know what their final solution was. I’m sure Trump won’t want to reinvent the wheel.

  • @[email protected]
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    223 months 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    683 months ago

    States need to start stepping up to protect their population. They can’t legally prevent ICE from entering the state, but they can refuse to share information with them, pardon crimes, hand out informational pamphlets educating them on their rights, declare state of emergency if need be.

    • @[email protected]
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      303 months ago

      I do wonder how much further red and blue states can move away from each other before they un-unite.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        It will come down to state budgets getting wrecked, not civil rights abuses. I also think they will coordinate and won’t pull the trigger until they get multiple states ready to do it.

    • Որբունի
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      13 months ago

      I thought sheriffs had authority to get rid of federal agents and/or shoot them.

  • @[email protected]
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    1283 months 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      733 months 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.

    • greenfire
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      3 months ago

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

    • Cyrus Draegur
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      113 months 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.

  • Bakkoda
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    123 months ago

    Terrorists do this. Sounds like terrorism. Protect your fellow citizens everyone.

  • @[email protected]
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    253 months ago

    Anyone who sees ICE performing an arrest has the moral obligation to run them over with their car.

  • @[email protected]
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    3 months ago

    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.

    Then habeas corpus those roots to a judge otherwise it is time to change tactics with law enforcement.

    Law enforcement agencies keep making the country less safe for Americans so that it is more safe for law enforcement. At some point it is the duty of the residents to stop the police.

    • @[email protected]
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      593 months ago

      Not even a joke at this point. If ICE takes your family member you should expect them to be tortured. What point is there in being alive, if that just happens and you do nothing but watch.

  • dohpaz42
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    1353 months 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    2083 months 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      63 months 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?

    • @[email protected]
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      143 months 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      253 months 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”.

    • @[email protected]
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      1043 months ago

      Genuinely surprised it hasn’t happened yet

      They must not be apprehending very dangerous people.

      • greenfire
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        113 months ago

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

      • @[email protected]
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        983 months ago

        Cops almost always target the easy ones instead of the dangerous ones. Cowards, racists, and bullies, the lot of them.

      • @[email protected]
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        563 months 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?

        • @[email protected]
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          383 months 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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              93 months 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        253 months 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!

      • Cyborganism
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        163 months ago

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