ICE has detained a young father who agents initially attempted to arrest in Rhode Island last month while he held both of his young children in his arms, according to a video of the incident and an interview with the family.
The video, which went viral, shows two ICE agents intercepting the man, Enrique, on a residential street in Providence. They grab his arms, wrists, and shoulders. Enrique is struggling to carry both of his children, as they cling to him and cry.
Though Enrique and his children were released at the time, he was warned that he would have to report to ICE, the family said. This week, he was detained at an ICE facility in Warwick after being called for a check-in, his wife, Petronila, told the Globe on Thursday.
He is currently being held in Massachusetts, she said.
“He decided to go so that we wouldn’t be in danger [of being arrested],” Petronila, 23, said in Spanish. “He did it for us.”
The family has asked the Globe to identify the couple, who came to the US without authorization from Guatemala, only by their first names to protect their privacy. The Globe previously referred to Enrique by his middle name, Sebastian.
A spokesperson for ICE said in a statement when the video was first published that “there was no arrest, no accident, and no detention of children.
“At the direction of ICE officers, the driver pulled to the side of the street, striking the curb, and damaging his own tire,” the spokesperson said. “ICE officers spoke with the driver, provided the necessary paperwork, and departed the scene.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security confirmed his arrest in a new statement on Thursday and said that Enrique would “receive due process and remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”
“ICE does not separate families,” the spokesperson said. “Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates. This is consistent with past administration’s immigration enforcement.”
DHS said in its statement that Enrique was expelled from the country twice, in 2021 and again in 2023, after trying to cross the border, and then crossed again “at an unknown date and location.”
In the video of the initial incident, one of the ICE agents had his face covered almost entirely, with a mask and a cap.
Enrique was heading to drop off his 3-year-old son and 21-month year old daughter at a babysitter’s shortly after 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 20 before heading to his construction job when he noticed unmarked vehicles trailing him, he said in a previous interview.
Anxious about the cars following him, Enrique veered onto the curb, hitting his tire and bumper. Then he quickly got out of his damaged car and attempted to walk his children back home. But agents approached and stopped him. They appear uncertain about what to do with the children.
“This gentleman has two kids,” one of the ICE agents says into a handheld radio, grasping Enrique’s arm. “You wanna keep him or let him go?”
Enrique, 24, was detained on the street for about an hour, holding his distraught children, until eventually the agents decided to let them go. But they told him that if he did not check in with ICE, they could arrest the whole family, Enrique and Pentronila said. Last week, he received a letter instructing him to report to an ICE building in Warwick on Tuesday.
He complied, and shortly after he arrived at his check-in, he called Petronila to let her know he’d been detained. Now, she is trying to support her three children — the couple also has a kindergartener — on a single income from her part-time job at a small grocery store nearby.
The children are having trouble sleeping, want to be held often, and are often asking for their father, their mother said.
“The eldest one says, ‘Did they take my dad? I don’t know what is going to happen to him,’” Petronila said.
Enrique crossed the border illegally about three years ago, according to his wife, who said she and their eldest child followed him across the border. He had been trying to find legal help to adjust his status, she said. She is now in asylum proceedings.
After the Globe reported on the case last month, several New England lawmakers condemned how ICE treated the family and said they were seeking answers from the agency about the incident.
“No Rhode Islander can watch this video of a man simply trying to keep his children safe and think that the actions of these federal agents are acceptable. Surely we can acknowledge that traumatizing toddlers on the streets of Providence is a betrayal of our values as Americans,” Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed said in a statement. “I want ICE to stop terrorizing children and our communities and start putting real public safety first.”
Petronila is trying to find an attorney for her husband’s case. She has talked to her husband on the phone only briefly since he was detained, she said.
“He doesn’t want to be separated from his babies,” she said.
Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio can be reached at giulia.mcdnr@globe.com. Follow her @giuliamcdnr.