Indianapolis rally protests ICE arrest of two Honduran men captured on video

Around two dozen people gathered Sunday afternoon to protest the arrest of two men from Honduras in Indianapolis last month.

The protest, organized by the Indianapolis chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, was held at the intersection of I-65 and 30th Street where they believe the contentious arrest took place. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested two Honduran men during what appears to be a traffic stop.

The arrest, which took place on the morning of Feb. 28, was captured on video by one of the men and later posted to social media platforms by Jannette Kennedy, a friend who attended the protest on Sunday.

“I mean, it's terrible,” Kennedy said. “I just posted it online so people could see for themselves to just look at what's happening.”

The clip shows a group of federal law enforcement officers forcefully arresting the two men, Jose Montoya-Lopez and Amner Nunez-Vasquez, while brandishing stun guns and shouting commands in English and Spanish.

Throughout the video, the officers do not providee a reason for the traffic stop despite being asked repeatedly by the men. The video ends after the passenger of the van was dragged out by officers, and another climbs over the passenger seat to reach for the driver’s phone.

The video appears to show officers working for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives participated in the arrest.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said they do not have any information about IMPD officers being involved in the arrest. WFYI reached out to ICE for information about the incident but did not receive a response.

The men were transferred to an immigration holding facility in Clay County. According to public records, Montoya-Lopez was later transferred to Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana, a detention and removal facility at an airport. Vasquez-Nunez remains in Indiana at the Clay County Justice Center.

Montoya-Lopez’s wife said he was in the U.S. on a work permit that may have expired, according to reporting from the Indianapolis Star.

Carolyn Higginbotham, a former dean at the Christian Theological Seminary, was at the protest in Indianapolis. She said there is a palpable feeling of fear among her immigrant friends.

"I think it's really important for those of us who have privilege to raise up the voices of those who do not have the opportunity to actually speak for themselves,” she said, “not to take over the movement for them, but to help their voices be heard and to make sure they know that they are not alone, that there are lots of us who stand with them."

This comes as President Donald Trump has called for a crackdown on illegal immigration and promised increased deportations.

There was a jump in arrests by ICE during the first month of​ the Trump administration with immigration authorities making more arrests per day on average compared to the previous administration, according to NPR. Yet the latest data from the Department of Homeland Security shows that ICE arrests fall short of the goals set by the Trump administration.

According to the most recent federal data, fewer than 600 people per day have been booked into ICE detention facilities across the country during the first three weeks of February. That’s below the pace of 1,200 to 1,500 arrests a day that administration officials have said they want.

Contact WFYI Digital Producer and Reporter Jeremy Reuben at jreuben@wfyi.org.