ICE agents reportedly extract man from his vehicle during Bellingham detention
Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a man in Bellingham on Tuesday morning.
Vidal Palomar-Perez, 44, was taken into custody by masked agents in unmarked vehicles at the intersection of Guide Meridian and Pole Road, near Links Trailer Sales, according to Ruby Castañeda, co-founder of Raid Relief to Reunite Families. Castañeda has been working with families of those who have been detained and or deported by ICE.
Just before 8 a.m. Tuesday, a few minutes after leaving his home in Bellingham, Palomar-Perez was stopped by ICE agents in several unmarked vehicles, his cousin Vanessa Perez told The Herald in a phone interview Thursday. Perez said she was told about the details of the incident by family friends who live nearby and watched the encounter.
“He asked to see a warrant, and they wouldn’t show it to him,” Perez said. “They broke his window, pulled him out of the car. They slammed him to the ground (inuring him on the broken glass), they picked him up and slammed him on the hood of their car. He had a bunch of guys surrounding him and they were putting handcuffs on him. He let them know he was disabled, but they didn’t care. He kept asking for a paper, and then they showed him one, but it wasn’t his name (or picture) on the paper.”
Perez said Palomar-Perez described the incident to them during a phone call while in custody at the ICE facility in Ferndale. Palomar-Perez has been transferred and is currently in custody at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, according to the ICE website.
Before agents broke his window and pulled him from the car, Palomar-Perez called his wife and left a voicemail, telling her he had been stopped by ICE, Perez said. The voicemail ended when ICE agents broke the window.
Perez said Palomar-Perez was on his way to a physical therapy appointment for a work-related injury when he was stopped. He received an injury at work about four years ago that left him unable to walk properly and uses a cane, according to Castañeda. He’s undergone surgery and has been consistently going to physical therapy. He uses prescribed pain medication, but ICE has not been providing him the medication or allowing the family to send it to him, Castañeda said.
Palomar-Perez is an immigrant lacking permanent legal status who fled Mexico about 10 years ago to escape the cartels after having worked in gold mines, according to Perez. He has a wife and three kids who live in Bellingham.
Castañeda said Palomar-Perez’s family released the following statement:
“This is inhumane and unjust, the way they are treating people and tearing families apart for no reason. Our kids are terrified; the effect that this has had on his 8-year-old daughter is hard to watch. She cried herself to sleep begging for her father to come home. The wife would like to state that God is with us all he is the one that will give us the strength to carry out our kids while their fathers are being ripped away from their families. This is not about politics. This is getting out of hand. They are taking people that don’t have any criminal backgrounds. Being in the US is not a crime, it is a civil violation. Our people are hurting. They are hiding because even if you have the right to be here, born on American soil, you are being taken. This has to stop, it has to end.”
This story was originally published June 19, 2025 at 12:53 PM with the headline "ICE agents reportedly extract man from his vehicle during Bellingham detention."
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