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by Till Eckert

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has taken one of its agents off the streets after he was caught on video throwing a distraught mother to the floor of a New York City courthouse in front of her two children on Thursday.

It wasn’t the first time videos have captured scenes of immigration agents using violent force to carry out the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. But the videos of this incident — one of which I filmed for ProPublica — seemed to stir something different. In a rare move, the government publicly reprimanded an officer for such conduct.

“The officer’s conduct in this video is unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE,” an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said. “Our ICE law enforcement are held to the highest professional standards and this officer is being relieved of current duties as we conduct a full investigation.”

A video filmed by Till Eckert shows the officer throwing Moreta-Galarza to the ground inside the courthouse. (Till Eckert/ProPublica. Edited for privacy by ProPublica.)

Watch video ➜

I’ve only been in the U.S. as a reporter for eight weeks — so I just barely arrived. I come from Germany and am on the staff at Correctiv, a nonprofit investigative newsroom. I’d been alarmed by videos of masked ICE agents sweeping immigrants off the street, scenes I never thought I’d see in the United States, and I came with the goal of witnessing what was going on for myself. I wanted to report on how the administration’s immigration crackdown was playing out from the front lines.

Since arriving, I’ve spent time reporting in immigrant neighborhoods, emergency rooms, churches, ICE field offices and, most recently, in the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan. I’ve gone there most every morning for the past two weeks.

During that time, I’d seen ICE drag several immigrants away from their families, all of them sobbing and pleading with the officers not to separate them from their loved ones.

But what happened Thursday was a shocking escalation.

When I emerged from the elevator on the 14th floor, I heard a woman’s pleas. She sounded terrified. I walked around the corner to see what was happening. At the end of the hallway, I saw the woman, Monica Moreta-Galarza, standing in front of an agent. She was crying because her husband had been detained. She told the agent she was afraid her husband would be hurt. She wanted to go with him.

I began recording and captured the agent barking back at the woman. “Adios,” he said, over and over, pressing toward her as if warning her to back away. When she didn’t, he grabbed her. The rest — including her children’s screams — has been memorialized online.

The federal agent yells and waves his finger at Moreta-Galarza after throwing her to the ground. (Graham Macindoe)

I followed Moreta-Galarza to the hospital. She is an immigrant from Ecuador and has been living in Coney Island since last year. Speaking in Spanish, she said the government routinely beat people in her home country. “I didn’t think I’d come here to the United States and the same thing would happen to me.”

This morning, I went back to the courthouse with the goal of speaking to the agent who’d tackled Moreta-Galarza. I’d heard the other ICE agents call him Victor, though I can’t be sure that’s his real name. By the time I got there, however, he was gone.

ProPublica’s mission is impact. I don’t think any of us expected we’d help bring it about with my video. The question now is what will the government do the next time something like this happens.

I asked DHS how many agents have been disciplined this year for misusing force. They did not answer that question.

If you have tips about new ICE enforcement tactics in courts, we want to hear from you. Reach out via Signal (tilleckert.90) or propublica.org/tips.

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