Outrage is sweeping through Long Island’s Democratic circles following the emergence of a video showing an ICE agent forcefully slamming a detainee’s head into a brick wall during an arrest that took place last month.
The detainee, 35-year-old Isai Santos Caceras, was being escorted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and was resisting arrest when frustration boiled over for one of the agents.
According to video footage shared online by activists from Islip Forward, the agent accused Caceras of attempting to trip him. In response, he forcefully drove Caceras’s head into the wall of a supermarket in Hempstead Village.
“The agents used Caceras’s head like a battering ram against the brick wall,” the activist group stated. “This behavior is far from normal.”
Nassau County legislator Viviana Russell criticized both the agents involved and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman for the county’s contentious collaboration with ICE.
“Deploying individuals with minimal training into our communities, especially when they are armed, can lead to dangerous outcomes,” Russell remarked to The Post.
âA handcuffed manâs head being driven into a brick wall, followed by bystanders being left to manage the medical response, is unacceptable,â the Democrat said â adding the agent’s actions reflect a broader failure in training, supervision, and accountability.
âOur community deserves better,â she said.
It is unclear why Caceras was being taken into custody. He does not appear to have a criminal record and has legal status to work in the US, according to public records and activists.Â
The incident was just the most recent in ICEâs string of increased aggression on a nationwide scale, critics said — and follows the fatal shootings of Renee Good, Alex Pretti and Ruben Ray Martinez.Â
Locally, Dems and anti-ICE activists said this also is the latest stain on the countyâs already-controversial partnership with ICE.
Nassauâs program has been hit with allegations including not properly feeding ICE detainees, having âbad smellingâ drinking and showering water and denying migrants phone and lawyer access, according to state Democrats and the New York City Legal Aid Society.Â
County officials previously disputed those claims.Â
Neither Blakeman nor ICE responded to Post requests for comment.
Rep. Laura Gillen of Long Island blamed federal Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem for ICE’s alleged heavy-handed tactics.
âSecretary Noemâs mismanagement at DHS has stoked chaos in our communities,” Gillen said in a statement. “She must be fired or impeached immediately to bring order to the agency and ensure a full investigation into this incident takes place.â
