AP Photo/John Locher
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Maine arrested an asylum seeker and took him away, leaving behind his one-month-old baby and his wife, who did not have a driver’s license.
portland news herald It was reported on Wednesday that on January 21, Hassan Bari and his wife, Nene BarryAsylum seekers from Guinea are on their way home after a passport appointment for their children. But Hassan Bari never made it home because his car was suddenly surrounded by four unmarked vehicles.
this news herald Describing the arrest:
Armed and masked federal agents came out and gave Hassan’s name. They came for him.
“There was a baby in the car,” Barry told agents. “There’s a baby.”
Agents smashed his driver’s side window. Nene Barry said glass sprayed on the baby’s car seat. Her husband was arrested and pulled into an unmarked police car. Police left the scene within minutes.
Nene Barry, who did not have a driver’s license and did not speak English, was left alone in the car with her baby.
“He did everything for us and now he’s not here. What am I going to do alone in the cold with a one-month-old baby?” Nene Barry said in an interview in French this week.
Video given news herald Show the aftermath of the event. Shards of glass littered the streets and inside cars. “I have a child,” Nene Barry repeated in broken English.
“There was a car seat in the back with a baby blanket that was bought at the hospital. It was littered with shards of broken glass,” one witness told the newspaper, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “I carefully pulled back the blanket and there was just a little baby inside. He was crying.”
Hassane Barry, 38, has no known criminal record and his attorney said a search of his criminal history was fruitless. His English tutor told news herald Barry works as a tow truck driver for AAA and also works as a rideshare driver. At last check, Barry was being held at a detention facility in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Nene Barry said she was afraid to leave her home and only left once, to take her son to the doctor.
The arrests come as the Trump administration cracks down on undocumented immigrants as well as those who are in the U.S. legally.
Last week, an ICE agent in Portland went viral after he was filmed telling a woman that she would be entered into a “database” of “domestic terrorists” because she dared to film him in public.
ICE agents smashed the car’s windows and removed the asylum-seeking father after being told “there was a baby in the car.” This article first appeared on Mediaite.
