ICE confirmed 11 people were arrested in a raid in a northwest Miami-Dade neighborhood. NBC6’s Hatzel Vela reports
New video shows a group of men being arrested in northwest Miami-Dade in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid Thursday morning.
Witnesses said the incident happened at a home near Northwest 118th Street 11th Avenue.
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WATCH HEREICE officials confirmed Homeland Security Investigations conducted a work site enforcement operation in the area and arrested 11 people who were living in the country illegally.
Video from Only in Dade showed a group of paving company workers being placed in handcuffs between 6 and 7 a.m.
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Family and friends identified one of the people detained as Luis Mendoza, the owner of the company, Mendoza Pavers.
His wife said he was stopped while driving and refused to get out of his car.
"So they broke the window and they took them out," she said.
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The friends and family said the men were followed from places like Miami Gardens and Little Havana before they were taken into custody, but said some of them had their papers in order.
"Most of the employees had work permits, some of them had TPS, when they presented that to the agents, the agents were saying that those were false documentations, that they didn't care to see them," friend Argee Flores said. "That's abuse of authority and they're just treating them like animals."
Officials haven't released any other information on the people taken into custody but family said some of them were being detained at a facility in Doral..
"HSI is tasked identifying and investigating businesses involved in worksite violations, the exploitation of workers and with enforcing the business community’s compliance with federal employment eligibility requirements," an ICE official said in a statement. "During these operations, any alien determined to be in violation of U.S. Immigration laws may be subject to arrest, detention, and, if ordered removed by an immigration judge or other authority, subject to removal from the United States."
Check back with NBC6 for updates.
