An immigration attorney said she suffered a broken foot after an officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement knocked her to the ground Tuesday and locked her in an office, according to a report.
Andrea Martinez, the lawyer, told The Daily Beast the incident occurred early Tuesday morning at an ICE field office in Kansas City, Mo., where she was accompanying her client, a 3-year-old immigrant, to be reunited with his pregnant mother before they were expected to be deported to Honduras.
Martinez said she thought the two would be reunited in the parking lot of the facility, but federal officials decided to do so inside the building, out of view from protesters and cameras.
The attorney told The Daily Beast she and her law partner, Megan Galicia, attempted to go with the 3-year-old child into the building where the reunification would take place, but they were denied access.
Martinez said she was then “knocked to the ground and bloodied” by the ICE officer.
“He slammed the door on us,” Martinez told The Daily Beast. “The ICE officer pushed us out and didn’t let us follow our 3-year-old client into the lobby, and then pushed me to the ground. I was wearing high heels, so that’s when my foot was fractured and my leg got all bloody. And then my pants ripped. But then he called me back in and detained me for another 40 minutes or an hour.”
Video obtained by The Daily Beast and published on Facebook shows the incident take place outside the facility.
She said the officer “continually looked at my phone to make sure I wasn’t recording him.”
“He locked me in an office where I couldn’t get out and he didn’t let me call 911 or use the phone or anything,” Martinez said. “And I told him, ‘I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding, can you at least get me a first aid kit?’ And he said, ‘No, it’s not severe enough.’ And then my foot started swelling.”
According to The Daily Beast, Martinez said she was taken to the emergency room for medical attention.
ICE did not immediately return a request for comment.
[Also read: Steve King compares ‘occupy’ protests at ICE offices to events leading up to Civil War]
