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.
It’s only matter of time till people start planting ICE agents for this shit.
This is good internet tough guy rhetoric, but there is a reason people don’t do this.
Yes, in theory, it might be possible to make a self-defense claim if you’re charged with murder for killing an ICE agent. If some plain-clothes thug comes and tries to abduct you off the street, how are you to know they’re not human traffickers trying to abduct you instead of federal agents? The entire reason we have uniformed law enforcement is so that people can know they are agents of the law. A good self defense claim could absolutely be made, a simple case of mistaken identity, entirely the fault of agents who chose not to wear their uniforms.
The problem with this isn’t legal, it’s practical. If you shoot an ICE agent, you’re never going to make it in front of a judge to make that claim. They will kill you. You will be dead. Even if you somehow escape the scene, they will follow you to your house. They’ll put on their full uniforms, break down your door, and claim you pointed a weapon at them as they fill you full of lead. You are never going to be allowed in front of a judge to make your claim of self defense. You will simply be executed. This is how police officers always treat cop killers. Cop killers, even if they kill in self defense, do not get their day in court.
Killing an ICE agent is simply committing suicide. And while some would argue that this would be preferable to ending in an El Salvadoran prison, the truth is that, right now, very few people are actually ending up in such places. Only a tiny fraction of those detained by ICE end up in a place like that. That could change in the future, but right now, if you’re apprehended by ICE, the most likely outcome is that you’ll simply be deported. And even if you’ll be deported to a country where you face a high risk of violence, a high chance of death tomorrow is often preferable to a guaranteed death today.
This is the same reason very few Jews in the Holocaust took up arms against the Gestapo. Sure, it’s tempting to look back and ask, “why didn’t those condemned Jews fight back? Why didn’t every Jewish man sit in their home with a shotgun pointed at the door, waiting to take out the first Nazi bastard that barged in? If every Jew killed took one Nazi bastard out with them, the Holocaust would have never happened! It’s not like they had anything to lose!” It’s easy to say that. But again, a slim chance at life tomorrow is preferable to no chance at life today. A few people did get lucky and actually manage to survive the concentration camps. Better a chance at life than a guaranteed death.
Getting shipped off to a prison in El Salvador is a death sentence as well dude.