Elkhart mother and son detained by ICE

ELKHART, Ind.- Wednesday morning President Donald Trump tweeted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is doing a ‘great job for our country.’

Locally, on Tuesday, one Elkhart family found out what it feels like to have ICE agents knocking on their doors.

This family wants to remain anonymous for the fear of being targeted once again, but to set the scene, a Salvadoran mother and her son were detained near Harrison and 5th Street in Elkhart.

The family exclusively tells ABC57, two regular vans were parked outside their home. The mother was let go the same day, but her son remains detained.

“I feel terrible, we’re not criminals, to be treated like that,” she says in Spanish. “They treated me like I was the worst of the worst.”

Around 6:30 Tuesday morning ICE agents showed up at her door. “We were on our way to work when two vans were right there.”

The mother telling ABC57 there was no dialogue, only force.

“They just said they were with immigration and they handcuffed us and took us,” she says.

According to her, the ICE agents didn’t give her a chance to demonstrate she was actually in the process of gaining her citizenship.

“I was going to show them the paperwork before they took me, but they wouldn’t look at it.”

She doesn’t recall what jail her son and her were taken to, but after some finger prints they let her go. her son, to her knowledge, remained at the jail.

With tears in her eyes, she says she left El Salvador because her life depended on it.

“I left because of the violence, things over there are terrible. I couldn’t take it anymore and for our safety, I came here.”

About her son, she says, she doesn’t have a clue of where he is, how he is or what is going to happen to him.

ABC57 has contacted ICE and specifically asked about their presence in Elkhart County, but have not received a response yet.

The Elkhart County Sheriff’s Department and Prosecutor’s Office say they’re not able to comment at this time.

In relation to this mother, she’s in the process of looking for an attorney.