SAN DIEGO (AP) — A U.S. Marine Corps veteran expressed shock upon discovering a social media video depicting his father, a landscaper from Southern California, being assaulted by masked U.S. Border Patrol officers during an immigration arrest while pinned to the ground.
The detention of Narciso Barranco on Saturday, who arrived in the U.S. from Mexico during the 1990s without legal status, is the latest incident attracting significant attention amidst widespread scrutiny and protests against President Donald Trump’s administration’s immigration crackdown.
Observers posted videos of the arrest taking place in Santa Ana, a city located in Orange County between San Diego and Los Angeles. No recordings captured the entire sequence of events as agents struggled with Barranco outside an IHOP restaurant.
On Monday, Barranco’s son waited outside a Los Angeles federal immigration detention center for more than three hours but left without getting to see his father. A woman at the facility repeatedly said they were still trying to locate him before visitation hours ended. The Department of Homeland Security said he is in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Alejandro Barranco said his father, 48, called him Sunday and told him that he was in a lot of pain.
“He just started crying,” Barranco said.
DHS said Barranco refused to comply with commands and swung his weed trimmer at an agent. The agents “took appropriate action and followed their training to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation in a manner that prioritizes the safety of the public and our officers,” the email statement added.
Alejandro Barranco said his father did not attack anyone, had no criminal record and is kind and hardworking. He said the use of force was unnecessary and differed greatly from his military training. He aided the U.S. military’s evacuation of personnel and Afghan allies from Afghanistan in 2021.
“It’s uncalled for, not appropriate or professional in the way they handled that situation,” Barranco said. “It looks like he’s putting up resistance on the ground but that’s a natural human reaction and I think anybody would do that to defend themselves when they are being beaten.”
Santa Ana City Council member Johnathan Hernandez said he will request an investigation into the officers’ actions.
“I found the video to be horrifying,” he said.
The federal government said they’ve seen an uptick in people interfering with arrests, and that has put agents at risk. Trump has deployed the California National Guard and Marines to guard federal buildings in Los Angeles and protect federal officers.
DHS posted a video in which Barranco is seen running with the trimmer in the air as agents try to corral him. At one point, an agent sprays him with pepper spray, and Barranco moves the trimmer between him and the agent but it does not touch him. Behind him, another officer has his gun drawn as he crosses a busy intersection.
In another video, Barranco is seen running through the intersection still holding his trimmer upright as a truck moves to block his path. He then darts to another lane and tries to open a car door before agents tackle him. As he screams and yells, cars honk and one motorist shouts: “Leave him alone, bro.”
An agent tells Barranco to give him his hand as he lies prone. Video footage from another angle shows an officer hitting Barranco repeatedly on the head and neck as he screams and moans.
The department said in an email that Barranco “swung a weed whacker directly at an agent’s face. He then fled through a busy intersection and raised the weed whacker again at the agent.”
It added that Barranco declined medical care.
All three of Barranco’s sons were born in the United States and eventually joined the U.S. military. Alejandro left the Marine Corps in 2023. His two brothers are currently active-duty Marines.
“We joined the Marine Corps because we love our country and want to give back,” he said. “Our parents taught us to be appreciative, be thankful of our country, about being patriots.”
His father was worried about immigration officials arresting him and the family had looked into his options but Alejandro said his dad never found time to tend to the matter as he focused on his landscaping business.
In fact, the first thing he said to his son when they spoke after the arrest was to check on his landscaping client to make sure no mess had been left when he dropped everything and fled from agents, Alejandro said.
