We are not criminals

 

JEFFREY ST. CLAIR >

Edward Hip came to the US from Guatemala 22 years ago and has lived here ever since. Hip is married to an American citizen and is the father of two children, including a 5-year-old girl, who is autistic. 

Last week, Hip called his wife from his car and told her he thought he was being followed by ICE. His daughter was in the car with him. Hip drove home, parked the car in the lot and managed to get into his house in Leominster, Massachusetts.  But the ICE agents grabbed his daughter and held her hostage, using the frightened young girl as bait to pressure Hip to surrender. 

A video of the incident shows the young girl sitting on the curb next to a black ICE van, surrounded by armed immigration agents. She’s holding a bottle. Her mother can be heard saying, “They took my daughter, she’s 5 years old! She has autism spectrum. Give me my daughter back!”

Meanwhile, an ICE agent tells Hip, “Is that your daughter? Come here so I can see those IDs.” 

Hip replies: “Hey, I can give it through the door.”

The agent shakes his head and tells Hip, while pointing at the ground in front of him, “You can give it right here.” 

Hip’s wife said that “the agents threatened us, that if we did not open the door in 15 minutes, they would enter the house.”

Eventually, the local Leominster police showed up, took Hip’s daughter from the ICE agents and returned her to her mother. Then ICE left the scene.

Two days later, ICE returned to the Hip house. A neighbor, Liz Roman, described the raid: “They used bounty hunters and agents without a court order. They had them cornered. They went out behind the house and they tried to get there through our window.” They eventually abducted Hip and took him to the ICE detention center in Plymouth, where he remains.  Hip’s wife told Telemundo: “Officers came out behind my house, arrested him, took him away. We are not criminals.”