An Arlington County family feared for their lives, they say, when a man in plain clothes knocked on their door late at night to make an immigration arrest.
The man didn’t identify himself and pulled out a gun during the incident, the family says. Their relative has since been deported.
The family was about to go to bed June 11 when they got a knock on the door. Home security camera video shows a man at their neighbor’s door before coming to their door.
Sandra was in bed with her partner, Orlando. Her youngest son, Joseph, and his brother were getting ready for bed. They called police.
“There is an unknown male knocking on the door, asking for the caller’s mom,” the dispatcher reported. “They’re not expecting anyone.”
Another angle of the security cam video shows Arlington County police arriving.
Joseph said his brother went outside to talk with police and noticed the stranger also talking with police. When his brother came back inside, the stranger made his move, Joseph said.
“Our door was closed, and he forced his way inside very aggressively,” he said. “When he came in, I was standing, and he completely, he shoved me out of his way, and I was screaming for help, and he pointed his gun at me. He had his gun pointed at my head the entire time, and the police were right behind him, and I was screaming for help, like, ‘Please help.’ In that moment I thought, seriously, that he was going to kill me.”
Sandra and Orlando were still inside their bedroom when the man broke the bedroom door to find them, Sandra said.
“Once he went in the room, he threw me on the bed and then he threw Orlando on the bed and asked for ID,” she said.
Video shows what appears to be the stranger escorting Orlando out of the home in handcuffs.
“He never gave any kind of identification,” Joseph said. “No name, no nothing. No warrant, absolutely nothing.”
They learned he’s a bondsman. After he removed Orlando, he showed them a document titled “Notice to Obligor to Deliver Alien.” The header at the top of the document reads Department of Homeland Security and U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I felt hopeless,” Sandra said.
Orlando had been in the U.S. for 20 years working as a general contractor, the family said.
After his arrest, the bondsman drove Orlando around in his car for hours, presumably waiting for the ICE office in Chantilly to open, the family said Orlando later told them.
The family said he was held in Chantilly briefly. From there he was moved to Farmville, then Louisiana.
Shortly after arriving in Louisiana, he was deported to Honduras before the family could contact a lawyer, the family said.
An Arlington County police spokesperson said the officers on scene followed protocol and could not interfere with the bondsman.
“Officers, responding to the call for service from the occupants of the home, made contact with the male subject outside the residence and determined he was a DCJS licensed Bail Enforcement Agent,” the spokesperson said, adding, “The Arlington County police officers complied with county and department policies.”
“The legality of all this needs to be still investigated,” Arlington County Board Chair Takis Karantonis said. “It’s possible — we assume all of this was within legal limits — but we are investigating in detail whether they are.”
Virginia State Code says bondsmen are allowed to carry firearms and are not allowed to wear any kind of uniform or insignia to suggest they work for any local, state or federal agency, the police spokesperson said.
An ICE spokesperson said the agency does not employ bondsmen or bounty hunters to make arrests and that any obligor resorting to such tactics is doing so on their own and without any kind of authority or approval from ICE. However, the family says the order the bondsman showed them was authorized by Steven Newman, who is listed as a deportation officer on the DHS website.
The ICE spokesperson said anyone can serve an obligor notice, and, if the subject of that notice is in the country without legal status, ICE may begin deportation.
“Federal law enforcement agents are really testing the boundaries, and they’re going to the fringe of legality to pursue an agenda,” Karantonis said.
An ICE spokesperson explained the arrest was not an ICE operation and anything the bondsman did is on the company that he worked for.
Orlando had an outstanding notice for removal dating back about five years. A former ICE agent told News4 it’s likely Orlando missed a hearing and the bond company covered his cash bond and the only way to get their money back was to produce Orlando — which has been the practice for decades.
“It’s tearing people apart,” Sandra said. “I can only imagine the children that had to go through this.”
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