Long Island Democrats are furious over recently surfaced video of an ICE agent ramming a handcuffed detainee’s head into a brick wall during an arrest last month.
Isai Santos Caceras, 35, was being dragged away by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement workers and resisting arrest when one of the agents got visibly frustrated.
He shouted that Caceras was trying to trip him and then lowered the detainee’s head and drove it directly into the brick wall of a Hempstead Village supermarket, according to video footage posted online by activists from Islip Forward.
“Agents used [Caceras’] head as a battering ram into a brick wall,” the group said. “This is not normal.”
Nassau County legislator Viviana Russell also blasted both the agents and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s controversial partnership between ICE and the municipality.
“When individuals with minimal training are deployed into our neighborhoods carrying firearms, the consequences can be severe,” Russell told The Post.
“A handcuffed man’s head being driven into a brick wall, followed by bystanders being left to manage the medical response, is unacceptable,” the Democrat said — adding the agent’s actions reflect a broader failure in training, supervision, and accountability.
“Our community deserves better,” she said.
It is unclear why Caceras was being taken into custody. He does not appear to have a criminal record and has legal status to work in the US, according to public records and activists.
The incident was just the most recent in ICE’s string of increased aggression on a nationwide scale, critics said — and follows the fatal shootings of Renee Good, Alex Pretti and Ruben Ray Martinez.
Locally, Dems and anti-ICE activists said this also is the latest stain on the county’s already-controversial partnership with ICE.
Nassau’s program has been hit with allegations including not properly feeding ICE detainees, having “bad smelling” drinking and showering water and denying migrants phone and lawyer access, according to state Democrats and the New York City Legal Aid Society.
County officials previously disputed those claims.
Neither Blakeman nor ICE responded to Post requests for comment.
Rep. Laura Gillen of Long Island — a Democrat who just one month ago crossed party lines to vote for a boost in ICE’s funding — blamed federal Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem for ICE’s alleged heavy-handed tactics.
“Secretary Noem’s mismanagement at DHS has stoked chaos in our communities,” Gillen said in a statement. “She must be fired or impeached immediately to bring order to the agency and ensure a full investigation into this incident takes place.”
