<body><div><div style="position:relative;width:100%; height:0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XQC5LP63-fo?feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" style="width:100%; height:100%;top:0; left:0; position:absolute"></iframe></div>A car traveling south on State Street approaches Court Street as three unmarked vehicles — one with law-enforcement lights flashing — box it in, forcing the car to stop and blocking a lane of traffic.Four federal immigration agents emerge. They’re all wearing vests. At least one is wearing a face mask. Another unmarked car and more Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents soon show up.Eventually, the ICE agents open the car’s rear driver’s side door and pull out the man they had been looking for — 18-year-old New Havener Jaime Diaz-Perez. They secure his hands behind his back while he’s on the ground.Another man, Diaz-Perez’s father, opens the front passenger’s side door and steps out of the car, only to be pushed back inside by an ICE agent.The ICE agents walk Diaz-Perez, with his hands secured behind his back, over to one of the unmarked vehicles. They put him in the back seat and drive away, leaving the car they had stopped behind.All of this plays out in less than three minutes.That scene is included in newly released video footage documenting Tuesday morning’s ICE arrest on State Street. The video was recorded by one of the New Haven Police Department’s (NHPD) Milestone cameras.The NHPD provided that video to the Independent a day after federal immigration agents arrested Diaz-Perez in the middle of the day on the downtown corridor. Diaz-Perez had just left the latest hearing in his ongoing criminal case at a courthouse a few blocks away.Meanwhile, Diaz-Perez has since been transferred to Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Plymouth, Mass., according to ICE’s online detainee locator.In a statement sent to the Independent on Wednesday, an anonymous DHS spokesperson said ICE arrested Diaz-Perez “during a targeted operation in New Haven” on Tuesday.The spokesperson described Diaz-Perez as a “criminal illegal alien from Guatemala” and noted that he had been arrested by city police on Aug. 30 on various charges, including aggravated assault.The DHS spokesperson said that ICE “lodged a detainer for Diaz-Perez” on Sept. 3, “but the Connecticut Department of Corrections released him back into the community.”The DHS spokesperson also wrote that, during Tuesday’s arrest, Diaz-Perez “refused lawful commands to exit his vehicle.” They also said that a “passenger in Diaz-Perez’s vehicle attempted to physically interfere with the arrest.”That account differs from the one given by the driver, Catherine John, an organizer with Black and Brown United in Action. She said agents boxed in her car on State Street near Court Street around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, broke a rear window, and dragged Diaz-Perez out of the car. When Diaz-Perez’s father got out to ask what was happening, John said, an agent grabbed him and threw him, hurting his head in the process.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4T6Joc_1GzrbsZn00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4T6Joc_1GzrbsZn00" width="1024" height="712" ><figcaption>Shattered glass covers the back seat and floor of the car Jaime was riding in. The driver, Catherine John, says ICE agents broke the rear window to reach him during Tuesday’s arrest. Credit: Contributed photo</figcaption></figure>The DHS statement did not address the car’s broken window nor the allegations that an agent struck Diaz-Perez’s father. The NHPD video does not show the side of John’s vehicle with the broken window. It’s unclear from the video when the window is broken.Instead, the DHS statement said ICE officers are “trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and our officers.”Both Catherine John and John Lugo of Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA) disputed ICE’s written account.“That is not true,” Lugo said. “You can see in the video, his father didn’t physically interfere with ICE,” Lugo said in reference to a video taken by a bystander. The NHPD video does show Diaz-Perez’s father exiting the vehicle, but it does not appear to show him interfering with the ICE agents. Instead, it shows him being pushed back into the car.“It is wild that they could say something like this,” said Catherine John.Lugo said that Diaz-Perez’s father, who went to the hospital after the encounter with ICE, was in stable condition as of Wednesday. Lugo also said Diaz-Perez told him that, after the arrest, he was denied medical attention for his injuries until Tuesday evening.ICE did not respond to a question about Diaz-Perez’s medical status.New Haven police spokesperson Officer Christian Bruckhart said police first learned of the ICE arrest when a city police officer stopped Catherine John shortly afterward as she was using her phone while driving Diaz-Perez’s father to the hospital and she told him what happened.Catherine John said that the officer called a supervisor and documented the incident.DHS’s statement also laid out Diaz-Perez’s immigration history. The agency said Border Patrol arrested him in January 2022, when he was roughly 14 years old, after he illegally entered the country near Hidalgo, Texas, “and the Biden administration RELEASED him into the country.”Lugo said Diaz-Perez was in the process of obtaining legal status. DHS’s statement said that “work authorization does not confer legal status in the U.S.”Diaz-Perez’s immigration attorney, Yasmin Rodriguez, could not be reached for comment at the time of publication. Diaz-Perez was at the courthouse at 121 Elm St. on Tuesday for a hearing in a pending criminal case – not an immigration matter. According to court records, New Haven police arrested him on Aug. 30 and charged him with first-degree assault, interfering with an officer and evading responsibility in a crash that caused serious injury. He was released after posting a $200,000 bond and has not entered a plea. The Connecticut constitution says that every person facing a pending criminal charge has a constitutional right to have bail or release conditions set. Mayor Justin Elicker said that regardless of the charges against Diaz-Perez, he “still deserves due process.”ICE described the interfering charge as a felony; court records list it as a misdemeanor. The arrest came about 10 months after ICE arrested a man inside the 121 Elm St. courthouse in January. A state law passed in November 2025 restricts civil immigration arrests on courthouse grounds and expands the area around courthouses where people are shielded from such arrests.Rhonda Hebert, a Judicial Branch spokesperson, said the area near State and Court streets where Tuesday’s arrest took place “is not considered court grounds,” so ICE was not required to notify the court.She said marshals and court staff were not aware of ICE agents near the courthouse that morning and the Judicial Branch had no comment on the arrest.DHS said Diaz-Perez will “receive due process and remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”</div></body>

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A car traveling south on State Street approaches Court Street as three unmarked vehicles — one with law-enforcement lights flashing — box it in, forcing the car to stop and blocking a lane of traffic. Four federal immigration agents emerge. They’re all wearing vests. At least one is...

Video Shows Downtown ICE Arrest

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A car traveling south on State Street approaches Court Street as three unmarked vehicles — one with law-enforcement lights flashing — box it in, forcing th

Video Shows Downtown ICE Arrest - NewsBreak

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Video Shows Downtown ICE Arrest

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