ON THE RECORD

Woman Speaks Out After ICE Agents Smashed Her Car Window in Video

After one agent used a large hammer to break the glass, the woman and her husband were dragged out of the vehicle.

A Massachusetts woman spoke to NBC News after ICE agents were seen on video smashing her and her husband’s car window on Monday. Marilu Mendez said she started filming on her cellphone when ICE vehicles began following her and husband Juan Mendez before surrounding their car on Tallman Street in New Bedford. Her video shows a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent using a large hammer to break the passenger window of their car. According to Marilu Mendez, the agents kept calling her husband “Antonio,” the name of another man who lives in their building. The Mendezes called their lawyer, who recommended they stay in the car without sharing any information with the agents until the lawyer arrived. Juan Mendez is an undocumented Guatemalan immigrant but is in the process of changing his immigration status and has no criminal record. Before their attorney arrived, the ICE agents broke into the vehicle and dragged the couple out. Marilu Mendez told Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra in Spanish: “Three ICE agents held my husband. They took us out unjustly... I tried to talk to them and ask them if they had an order to detain him. They didn’t respond or show me anything. They had no reason to detain him. We’ve been following the rules of this country. We are doing things the right way. That’s why we have a lawyer.”