Utah family sues immigration officers, says agents intimidated them and frightened their children during two warrantless searches

After immigration officers broke into her Heber apartment twice last April, Berenice Resendiz said her children are still scared of police.

The agents pointed guns at her small children. They yelled at the children and the adults at the home. They threatened to take the children away from their family and arrested their grandmother.

Now, Resendiz and her family are suing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Marshals Service, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah. ACLU lawyers allege in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court that the agents violated the family’s constitutional rights by conducting two warrantless, SWAT-style raids on a family who had no criminal history.

“They wanted to intimate us because they thought they could,” Resendiz said in a statement Tuesday. “I wanted to show my children that we stand up to things like this when they happen.”

The plaintiffs are five adults and four small children, who were allegedly targeted in raids on April 10 and 11.

The lawsuit alleges that in the first raid, the children’s grandmother, 48-year-old Alicia Amaya Carmona, was babysitting when at least 10 federal agents burst into the apartment, armed with assault rifles and pistols, and ordered the woman and the young children out of the apartment.

The children sat outside with no shoes or coats for about a half-hour as agents ransacked their home, according to the lawsuit.

Agents interrogated Carmona about her immigration status, according to the lawsuit, and asked for the whereabouts of her husband, who had been indicted for illegal re-entry in 2011. She told them she didn’t know where he was, according to the lawsuit.

After the ICE agents arrested Carmona, they contacted her son Carlos Ramirez and told him that the agents would take their children if no one was home to care for them within 15 minutes.

During the first raid, several of the adult family members asked whether the agents had a warrant to search their home. The agents refused to show them paperwork, according to the lawsuit, telling them not to “worry about it.”

One ICE agent, Jordan Reddish, told Ramirez that his mother would be let go — but only if he told officers where his father was. Carmona was taken to the Summit County jail.

The following evening, ICE agents returned to the family’s home and used a battering ram to break into the apartment, where Resendiz and her children had been sleeping. Again, the agents pointed their guns at the family, according to the lawsuit, and ordered them to leave the apartment.

When the family again pressed the agents to produce a warrant, Reddish told Ramirez that he was “watching too much Univision,” and that he did not need a warrant to break down a door, according to the lawsuit.

Family members say the agents teased them, telling them to go back to Mexico and calling them cowards for fearing the drug cartels there.

“We had done nothing wrong, and yet they acted like we were criminals,” Eduardo Ramirez, another one of Carmona’s sons, said in a Tuesday statement. “They made fun of us for being afraid of their guns. None of us caused problems for them, and they knew there were kids in the apartment. No one should have to go through what we did.”

The lawsuit names Reddish — the only agent who identified himself by name during the raids — and 48 unnamed agents as defendants.

Carl Rusnok, spokesman for ICE, said Tuesday that he could not comment on pending litigation, adding that “lack of comment should not be construed as agreement with or stipulation to any of the allegations.”

“As part of the Department of Homeland Security’s homeland security mission, our trained law enforcement professionals adhere to the department’s mission and values, and uphold our laws while continuing to provide the nation with safety and security,” he said in an email.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshals Service said they do not comment on pending litigation.

John Mejia, legal director for the ACLU of Utah, called the agents’ actions “horrifying” and said they “reflect a sense of unchecked authority that must be put to a stop.”

At a Tuesday news conference, ACLU of Utah executive director Brittney Nystrom said the tactics reflect an increasingly heavy-handed approach by ICE agents in Utah and across the country since Donald Trump became president.

Nystrom said that, during the Barack Obama administration, ICE agents were instructed to prioritize deporting violent criminals. That has changed since Trump came into office, and Nystrom said ICE agents have been instructed to deport anyone who was not in the county legally.

The ACLU said the four young children are all U.S. citizens, and four of the adults are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Carmona, who was held in jail for a month after her arrest, is currently in deportation proceedings.

S. Starling Marshall, an attorney with Covington & Burling LLP who is also representing the family, said Tuesday that lawsuits like this are uncommon — but it’s unknown how often these heavy-handed tactics are used in Utah and elsewhere.

“Understandably, people with precarious immigration status are often terrified to come forward,” she said. “And I believe these officers preyed on that fact, thinking they would never have to be held accountable for their actions because these people would be voiceless.”

Carlos Ramirez said he hopes the lawsuit will stop similar behavior from happening to other families.

“It’s really been hard to get things back to normal for the kids and our family,” he said. “I hope we can get justice for our family.”