ICE agents detain a Shoreline father

ICE agents in Shoreline detain a father
Photo by Chris Megargee

By Chris Megargee

A difficult day. Today I was present as ICE agents detained a father a mile from my house--while his two-year-old son sat scared in the backseat.

It began with an early phone call from immigrant day laborer friends at our nearby Home Depot parking lot. They’d spotted two cars in the lot that looked like they could be ICE, and they asked that we come check it out. I and several other volunteers from our solidarity group quickly went.

The cars were ICE—one’s driver had a police vest and mask over his face. As several of us gathered and started to film them where they were parked, both vehicles slowly drove away.

Moments later, we got a report on a Signal chat of an ICE abduction happening at 163rd and Aurora—right across the street from the Brown Bear Car Wash, just 2 miles from where we were. We hopped in a car to check it out.

En route, we remarked that ICE would almost surely be gone—even though we only had a 6-minute drive to get there. In our region, they don’t linger. It’s smash and grab, and off they go.

To our surprise, as we headed south on Aurora Avenue and approached the location, ICE was still there. Four unmarked vehicles, with flashing lights in front and back, and masked agents standing outside the cars.

The ICE vehicles had surrounded the immigrant community member’s vehicle—and they were blocking two lanes of traffic.

When we got to the scene, we learned the horrifying reason that the ICE agents did not just nab their guy and take off:

The man they abducted was driving his two-year-old son to daycare and the boy was still in the car.

The abducted dad was in the back pen of ICE’s Dodge Charger. And in the back seat of the dad’s car, his two-year-old son sat alone, in his car seat, with ICE agents and flashing lights surrounding him.

Talking with the ICE agents, we learned that they were awaiting a family member to come pick up the boy. That wait lasted 30 minutes.

It was beyond heartbreaking to see this little boy, through the window, darting his gaze around every which way, trying to figure out what was going on. No one was in the car with him. Armed agents surrounded the car.

At times, the boy pulled a white fuzzy blanket over his whole body and covered his head. After a while, he’d pull it down again and look around some more.

A man from the nearby tobacco shop brought out a little plastic toy and offered it to us to give to the boy. I passed the toy to an ICE agent and asked if he would give it to the boy. He did, and through the window, we could see the boy playing with it.

All in all, things remained calm--despite the tragedy before us.

Several more community observers arrived. And 3 more ICE vehicles arrived (total of 7)—perhaps in case things started to escalate.

Training kicked in for a lot of us.

Keep at a safe distance. Keep filming and taking pictures. Don’t antagonize the agents—ultimately it is the immigrant community members who will pay the price.

There were at times sharp words and tense moments from a few passerby/observers. But for the most part, things stayed de-escalated.

Finally the person arrived for the boy. It was a friend/coworker rather than a family member. She got the boy into her car. We got him some food from one of our cars.

Mercifully, the boy had the two-year-old’s gift of living in the moment. He became chatty and smiley. The friend moved the abducted dad’s car out of the street and into a parking lot as another responder and I entertained the boy.

I went and got the car seat out of the dad’s car and installed it into the family friend’s car. I then went back to dad’s car to grab the Woody doll (from Toy Story) I’d seen. The boy seemed happy to keep Woody by his side.

The friend then drove the boy in her car to the detained man’s place of employment, and I drove the detained dad's car there right behind her.

It was sacred, terrible, intimate, heartbreaking to be in that car--to sit in the dad’s driver seat so shortly after his and his family’s lives got ripped apart.

I glanced over to the passenger’s seat and saw a neatly packed clear plastic bag of sliced apples, crackers, and juice box—what was going to be the boy’s lunch at daycare.

On the floor right in front of that same seat, there was an open plastic bag with three freshly wrapped tamales and a carton of soup. The tamales and soup were still hot. It was the abducted dad’s lunch.

He had just stopped at our local Latin market to buy it, on his way to his son’s daycare, with plans to then start his own workday.

Another set of lives ripped apart.

Another horror committed by masked, armed, unidentified agents of government.

Another neighbor disappeared from the streets.

Another child without a parent.

Another day in Trump's America.

Shame on us. Please take action to help make these horrors stop.