A federal immigration officer who shoved an Ecuadorian woman to the floor at a Manhattan court is "being relieved of current duties", the Department of Homeland Security has said in a rare rebuke of one of its officers.
The altercation, which was captured on videos that spread quickly on social media, unfolded after the woman's husband was arrested at an immigration court in New York City.
Footage shows the woman approach the immigration officer following her husband's arrest, pleading with the officer in Spanish and at one point saying "You don't care about anything," before he pushes her into a wall and then onto the floor of a crowded hallway.
"The officer's conduct in this video is unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE," Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at DHS, which oversees immigration enforcement, said on Friday. "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," she added.
It is uncommon for the Trump administration's DHS to discipline immigration officers for aggressive tactics across the US.
The altercation in New York occurred Thursday at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, a government building that houses an immigration court and has become a local hotbed of arrests and detentions in the federal government's immigration crackdown.
The agency has defended its practice of having Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrest people at immigration court hearings, which have sometimes produced chaotic scenes. |
