A federal judge has thrown out an “outrageous” and “fictional” attempt by the Trump administration to have a man jailed for 20 years after a video showed that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent had cut his own arm while punching through a car window.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had sought to have Jaime Alberto Quintanilla-Chavez imprisoned for forcibly assaulting or impeding an officer.
It also sought an “enhanced” sentence for Quintanilla-Chavez, 35—who is married to a U.S. citizen—for having allegedly “inflict[ed] bodily injury” on Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officer William Carl.
But U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez dismissed the indictment on Oct. 20, saying that the government could not prove Quintanilla-Chavez had “forcibly” interfered with officers or that he had caused the injury to Special Agent Carl.
The enhancement hinged on a cut to the arm Carl suffered while smashing the driver-side window during an investigative stop on Quintanilla-Chavez. In filings obtained by the Daily Beast, HSI contended in court that the car’s “sudden movement [had] caused the shards of glass to catch and cut [Carl’s] arm.”
But the George W. Bush-appointed judge said it was “not clear from the video footage if the moving truck caught SA Carl’s arm or the force of his own blow caused his cut when he broke the window.” Rodriguez also warned that allowing officers’ self-inflicted injuries to manufacture felonies would “grant immigration enforcement officers carte blanche to evade the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.”
The judgment catalogs “outrageous” government conduct throughout its attempted prosecution of Quintanilla-Chavez, beginning with a tip-driven operation with “marked deficiencies” by HSI, ICE’s investigation arm, which is aiding the mass deportation drive by Kristi Noem’s DHS.
Quintanilla-Chavez’s arrest came after a tip-off from a woman that he was in the country illegally and “had physically abused her daughter and was stalking her.” Despite officers describing him as “an easy target,” they failed to corroborate the allegations, and there is no indication that Quintanilla-Chavez committed any wrongdoing.
It found that Carl had simply assumed a removal order existed against the Honduran. Having decided to detain Quintanilla-Chavez, HSI was then ruled to have “feigned” concerns for their own safety.
Judge Rodriguez said the HSI team had made an “unjustified arrest,” with “excessive force,” and that Carl had decided to smash his car window despite only “partial and passive non-compliance” from Quintanilla-Chavez, before HSI provided a sworn affidavit that the judge called “largely fictional.”
Marina-Thais Douenat, the Assistant Federal Public Defender in Texas who represented Quintanilla-Chavez in court, told the Beast that the “aggressive tactics being employed by ICE are becoming increasingly unchecked and threaten the very fabric of our society.”
Douenat added, “We cannot allow these overreaches to stand unchallenged. We must put an end to these inhumane practices and uphold the principles of justice that define our nation.”
Despite the charges having been thrown out, Quintanilla-Chavez is still locked up at the Pearsall Immigration Detention Center, with Douenat saying he had been unable to get an immigration bond.
Douenat said that Quintanilla-Chavez had attempted to petition to stay in the country through his wife, Tatiana Herrera, 29, who has three children below the age of 14, whom Quintanilla-Chavez raises as his own. Douenat says he has an upcoming immigration court hearing on Nov. 20.
The incident also had further tragic consequences in that it led to the death of Quintanilla-Chavez’s six-month-old weenie dog Rocky, who was run over by a car following the stop. Douenat said, “Jaime loved that dog and took him everywhere.”
Amid what appears to be a growing pattern of glass-smashing arrests, the judge further noted that DHS managers “are apparently encouraging that car windows be summarily broken.”
A July report by ProPublica documented nearly 50 such incidents in Trump’s first six months—versus eight in the prior decade—and found no written DHS policy authorizing the tactic or training that teaches it.
The Daily Beast contacted DHS and the White House for comment on Friday. Neither had responded by the time of publication.
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