A video that shows a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest inside a Salt Lake City home went viral this week. In it, agents restrain a middle-aged man and a teenager while a woman screams, “Get out of my house!”
The family said it was racial profiling. ICE implied it was the consequence of an attempt to evade arrest or ignore the commands of a federal agent.
People wondered in the comments what happened before the video began.
Elizabeth Garcia said it started with a 7:46 a.m. call on July 7.
Her father asked her to pick him up from the gas station because he saw suspicious people looking at and getting close to him. He thought they might be undercover police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation or immigration agents.
As Garcia approached, her father told her the suspicious people had left. He then drove home because he was nervous, and she followed. The men, who turned out to be ICE agents, passed her car, she said, and followed her dad to their Rose Park home, turning on their emergency lights about two blocks from their house. He parked and ran into the garage, and the agents parked in the driveway like it was their own, she said, and chased after him.
“No lo dejaron cerrar la puerta y hasta el perrito se escapó,” she said in Spanish.
“They didn’t let him shut the door, and even the puppy got out,” she said.
One agent’s vest said “Police,” and the other’s “Police Federal Agent,” but Garcia said they never introduced themselves or announced they were with ICE. She started filming.
Her brother, who is a United States citizen, was released and her father was taken into custody. Garcia said he’s currently in the ICE holding room in West Valley City.
ICE has a different version of events.
A statement to KUER about the video said the agency arrested Raul Meza Moreno, who “is an illegal alien from Mexico who was granted voluntary return to Mexico for illegally entering the United States on three separate occasions.” The agency did not say whether it had a warrant to enter his home.
Garcia said her dad’s name is actually Raul Moreno Meza, and as far as she knows, her father was never granted voluntary departure. She couldn’t say for sure how many times he had entered the country, but she only knows of one occasion.
“Él no ha salido de aquí en 22 años,” she said.
“He hasn’t left here in 22 years.”
Her grandfather was a citizen and petitioned for her father’s legal residency before he died, she said, and the family hopes they can finish the process.
ICE’s statement did not explicitly say Moreno Meza was evading arrest, but stressed that its agents are “federal law enforcement officers and those attempting to evade arrest or who assault officers under the false assumption their commands are not lawful will face serious consequences.”
The agency said Garcia’s teenage brother assaulted an agent, which she vehemently denies. To her, it was the other way around, and the officers left her brother sore and scratched.
“They’re not being honest, and I think we all know that,” she said in English. “That’s why everyone is video recording, because we do not feel safe, we do not feel safe around them.”
This isn’t the first time immigration officers have entered private property without a warrant in Utah. Officers with Customs and Border Protection broke into an auto shop in West Valley City in January and arrested two men.
That agency is investigating the incident, said Andy Armstrong, attorney for one of the men arrested that day. His firm was also hired for Moreno Meza’s case.
Even if someone is evading arrest, Armstrong said, law enforcement doesn’t have the right to enter a home without a warrant except in special circumstances. Courts have ruled that exigent circumstances are necessary in those cases, such as an individual posing a danger.
An internal ICE memo, however, told agents they could enter homes to arrest someone with a final order of removal.
Armstrong said the agents should have stopped when Moreno Meza went inside his home.
“The situation freezes. They can wait for him to come out, or they can go and get a warrant, but they certainly can't justify going into his home without a warrant, unless their argument is he was dangerous.”
Armstrong doesn’t think the agency had any reason to arrest him other than his lack of legal status — which is reason enough for arrest, he said, but not forcible entry into the home.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
