ICE Encounter With Autistic 5-Year-Old Sparks Alarm

A video of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with a 5-year-old autistic girl outside her family home in Leominster, Massachusetts generated alarm after it was published Monday by NBCUniversal's Spanish-language Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra.

While Telemundo first reported that the family accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement of holding the girl in an effort to pressure her father, 22-year-old Edward Hip Mejía, to surrender to ICE, and the agency initially did not respond to a request for comment, the outlet updated the article on Tuesday, including with a comment from a government spokesperson.

The video from last Tuesday shows the little girl seated outside an open vehicle, drinking from a water bottle while surrounded by law enforcement. A man can be heard shouting "Don't touch her!" and a woman identified as the girl's mother tells one agent that the others took her daughter, who is 5 years old and on the autism spectrum. She also says, "Give me my daughter back."

The mother, who did not want her name shared, told Telemundo that her husband called her while driving with their daughter because he thought they were being followed. Her husband "managed to run back into the parking lot of my house," she said, and her daughter was left with the agents. The video shows agents trying to get Hip Mejía to come outside the house to show them identification.

According to NBC Boston, "Leominster police arrived at the scene, recovered the child, and returned her to the family."

The couple has two children who were born in the United States. Neither parent was taken into custody that day. However, two days later, ICE returned to their home and took Hip Mejía into custody, his wife said. He is now being held at a detention center in Plymouth.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the US Department of Homeland Security, responded to NBC News' English version of the initial reporting, calling it "a disgusting smear." She claimed that Hip Mejia "ignored law enforcement emergency lights to pull over and drove back to his house," and then "abandoned his 5-year-old daughter in the car."

The family's experience is part of an attempt by ICE to deliver on US President Donald Trump's promise of mass deportations.

The initial reporting and footage sparked swift outrage, with critics across the United States and beyond condemning agents' treatment of the family as "fascism," "truly evil," and "a fucking abomination."

Joanna Kuebler, chief of programs at the advocacy group America's Voice, said in a Tuesday statement that "this visceral event is just another frightening example of a broader and deeply disturbing pattern by this administration."

"The combination of cruelty and impunity in pursuit of a mass deportation crusade is dangerous for America and all of our safety," Kuebler added. "Smashing car windows, ripping families apart, and traumatizing children threatens the public safety of American communities and the stability of our nation.”

This article has been updated with comment from the US Department of Homeland Security and corrections by Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra.