(C) Common Dreams
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Family member condemns use of armored vehicle, stun grenades in Phoenix ICE arrest [1]
['Daniel Gonzalez']
Date: 2025-02-03
Family member condemns use of armored vehicle, stun grenades in Phoenix ICE arrest
Show Caption Hide Caption Phoenix ICE operation with armored truck leaves residents few answers An incident involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and an armored vehicle yields few answers for the residents of a northwest Phoenix neighborhood on Feb. 3, 2025. Provided by Marco Garcia and Natally Cruz
ICE agents used an armored vehicle and flash bang grenades to arrest a 61-year-old man in Phoenix.
Marco Garcia says his father is not a threat to public safety and was seeking medical treatment for several health issues.
The man's family is concerned about his well-being and thinks he may have been mistakenly identified by ICE officers.
A family member is speaking out against an ICE operation in northwest Phoenix on Sunday, calling it an unnecessary use of force that involved an armored vehicle, flash bang grenades and several dozen ICE agents and police dressed in military-style gear to arrest a single person, a 61-year-old man in poor health.
ICE officials later identified the man who was arrested as Alfonso Garcia Vega. ICE officials said he was picked up during a "routine daily operation" and had previously illegally entered the country multiple times and has convictions for assault and weapons offenses.
Sunday's arrest in Phoenix took place amid President Donald Trump's nationwide immigration crackdown launched just over two weeks ago on Trump's first day in office.
Videos of the ICE operation show an armored vehicle equipped with a long battering ram rolling through a residential neighborhood in daylight and then pulling up in front of a home as unmarked vehicles with sirens sounding and lights flashing zoom in and block off streets.
As the battering ram lowers there is a sudden flash and explosion in front of the home followed by the voice of an officer over a police loudspeaker who says, "This is the police with a warrant. Exit the residence immediately with your hands empty and above your head." A second flash and explosion can be heard as the officer speaks.
The videos were shared by Marco Garcia, the son of the man arrested; immigrant activist Natally Cruz, director of Puente Arizona; and others on social media.
Garcia, 26, said ICE arrested his father, Alfonso Garcia Vega, 61.
Garcia said he believes ICE used unnecessary force to send a message.
"I think it was excessive. I think it was unnecessary for them to do this," Garcia said. "I think they used this as propaganda. I think they used it to show an example of what they can do. It was like a show to them."
Garcia believes ICE was also trying to scare people.
"Because when they left they all started to sound their sirens, to try to scare us," Garcia said.
Cruz, the director of Puente Arizona, said she has not witnessed a local arrest by ICE involving so much force.
"It was almost like (they were going after) El Chapo," Cruz said, referring to the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin Guzman. "There were more than 30 cars."
She believes the use of force was meant to sow fear in response to workshops being organized by Puente Arizona and other groups to teach immigrants about their rights to avoid being deported, including remaining silent and not opening the door.
"I felt like it was a way of terrorizing the community and saying one way or another we are going to get inside your house," Cruz said
A written statement provided by Zach J. Stoebe, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, said Garcia Vega was arrested Sunday at his home with an arrest warrant authorized by a federal magistrate judge.
"ICE officers attempted to consensually encounter and arrest Garcia Vega while he was on the sidewalk in front of his residence, but he fled into his residence in an attempt to avoid arrest," according to a separate written statement from the U.S. Attorney for Arizona.
He was charged with reentry after deportation, a felony, and detained pending trial at his initial court appearance on Monday, Feb. 3, the statement said.
In a separate written statement on Wednesday, Feb. 5, ICE confirmed the arrest of Garcia Vega Feb. 2, calling it a "routine daily operation."
Vega’s criminal history includes seven convictions for various offenses, including felony illegal reentry, assault, weapons offenses, and failure to appear, the ICE statement said.
Vega has entered the United States multiple times on unknown dates and from various locations, the statement said. He first came to ICE’s attention following a local arrest on Dec. 4, 2006.
Vega was deported to Mexico for the first time on Nov. 5, 2006, after an immigration judge ordered his removal from the U.S., the statement said.
Between 2008 and 2020, Vega illegally reentered the U.S. at least six times, the statement said. On each occasion, his removal order was reinstated, and he was subsequently removed to Mexico, the statement said.
After his arrest on Sunday, Garcia Vega was transferred by ICE to the U.S. Marshals’ Service, the ICE statement said.
A document filed in U.S. District Court on Feb. 2 stated Garcia Vega was deported on Sept. 11, 2020, after a felony criminal conviction for reentering the U.S. after a previous removal.
Garcia Vega was sentenced to 24 months imprisonment and 36 months of supervised release, according to the court document.
ICE located Garcia Vega after receiving information from the Law Enforcement Support Center that he was unlawfully in the U.S. The center conducted an investigation based on a referral from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after Garcia attempted to purchase a gun but was denied, according to the court document.
What are my rights against ICE? Immigrants flock to trainings as ICE raids ramp up
Garcia Vega's criminal history also includes a drug-trafficking charge, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney for Arizona.
Garcia said his father is not a public safety threat. He said he was not aware of any criminal history.
Garcia said his father had lived in the U.S. for about 40 years and has four U.S. citizen children. The arrest happened at their home near 16th and Beryl avenues in northwest Phoenix, Garcia said.
He said his father was deported in 2019 or 2020 to Mexico but returned to the U.S. last March after cartels in Sinaloa, Mexico, where he had been living, threatened to kill him for refusing to join.
He said his dad has several health issues, including problems with his lungs and stomach, and was seeking a diagnosis for a possible tumor on his head.
Planned Trump deportations force immigrants to learn their rights Puente Arizona teaches immigrants their rights in case they are questioned by ICE in response to the mass deportations planned by the Trump administration.
Garcia said ICE initially showed up at their home about 10:30 a.m. Sunday. His father was walking home from his sister's house nearby when a man wearing a vest marked as ICE pulled up in a car and told him to come over. Garcia said his father kept walking and went inside his own house.
"He let us know that immigration was outside," Garcia said. "We thought he was kidding until I looked outside and immigration was outside."
Garcia said he saw several cars parked in front of a neighbor's house and could see ICE agents looking at his house with binoculars. He said after his dogs started to bark he went out back and saw more ICE cars parked in the alley.
"When I was looking over the fence to see what was going on, one of the ICE agents got off and told me to tell Alfonso to give himself up or everything was going to get worse for everyone in the home," Garcia said.
Garcia said he told the ICE agent "by my knowledge he needed a warrant signed by a judge."
"He just smirked and told me they were working on getting that warrant and I told him 'OK, once you guys get that warrant come knock on the door and we will take a look at it and my dad will gladly surrender himself to you guys.'"
Garcia said the ICE agents left but then returned at about 2:50 p.m. with the armored vehicle and even more agents.
He said none of the agents knocked on the door or showed a warrant before the armored vehicle pulled up in front of their home and flash bang grenades were detonated.
"They were really loud. They scared everybody. We thought they were gunshots," Garcia said. "They drew their guns. They pointed their guns towards my wife, my mother and my father and on the speaker they told my father to come out, that they had a warrant. They had shields, they were dressed like they were military. My father, being scared for his life and worried about my wife and my mother, he decided to go out."
He said the operation was filmed by an ICE agent "like it was propaganda, like a commercial."
Garcia said an ICE agent told him he left the warrant in the house after his father was arrested but Garcia said they did not find it.
He said his father called about an hour after he was taken into custody from an ICE detention center in Phoenix and said ICE officers showed him a picture of a man with the name Alfonso but it was not him.
"We don't know if they got confused and arrested a different man," Garcia said
Garcia said his dad is now being vilified on social media as a result of the videos of the ICE operation.
"They are making him look like he's a terrorist, a drug dealer, a criminal when in fact my dad is just a 62-year-old man just trying to be with his family. It's horrible. It's horrible what we went through. I think it was very unjustified what they did," Garcia said.
(This story was updated with new information, gallery and video.) Reporter Richard Ruelas contributed.
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[1] Url:
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2025/02/03/phoenix-ice-arrest-61-year-old-man-involves-armored-vehicle-stun-grenades/78189148007/
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