Federal agents blasted their way into a residential home in Huntington Park, California, on Friday. Security-camera video obtained by the local NBC station showed border patrol agents setting up an explosive device near the door of the house and then detonating it – causing a window to be shattered. Around a dozen armed agents in full tactical gear then charged toward the home.
Jenny Ramirez, who lives in the house with her boyfriend and one-year-old and six-year-old children, told NBC through tears that it was one of the loudest explosions she heard in her life.
“I told them, ‘You guys didn’t have to do this, you scared by son, my baby,’” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said she was not given any warning from the authorities that they wanted to enter her home and that everyone who lives there is a US citizen.
The raid comes as federal agents have ramped up immigration enforcement in Los Angeles and across southern California over the last few weeks. Huntington Park is in Los Angeles county. Immigrants have been swept up in raids at court houses, restaurants and straight off the street. Some of the people targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) have been US citizens. In one incident, Ice agents detained a Honduran woman seeking asylum and her children, one of which was a six-year-old boy who had been diagnosed with leukemia.
The agents who raided Ramirez’s home in Huntington Park on Friday also reportedly sent a drone into the house after setting off the explosive device.
The agents told Ramirez that they were searching for her boyfriend, but did not tell her why, according to NBC. Ramirez told the news station that he was involved in a vehicle collision with a truck carrying federal agents last week. She said it was an accident and unintentional.
A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection told NBC: “Jorge Sierra-Hernandez was arrested because he rammed his car into a CBP vehicle, causing significant damage and obstructed the work of our agents and officers during course of a law enforcement operation.”
The spokesperson said agents were “assaulted” during this incident and “additional rioters threw rocks and other objects at our personnel”.
Customs and Border Protection did not immediately return the Guardian’s request for comment.
In a separate incident in Huntington Park on Friday, a man was arrested for apparently impersonating an Ice agent, according to another report by the local NBC station. Police said they arrested the man after he parked in a disabled zone. In his vehicle, they allegedly found a firearm and documents that appeared to be from Homeland Security Investigations and CBP.
The man was arrested over possession of an allegedly unregistered firearm and later released on bail.