A Chelsea mother who says masked immigration officers smashed her car windows, dragged her out and slammed her face-first onto the sidewalk two blocks from Chelsea District Court has sued the United States in federal court. Hilda Ramirez Sanan, 51, a lawful permanent resident who has lived in this country for more than 20 years, filed the complaint Wednesday, October 28 in U.S. District Court in Boston with her two children, both U.S. citizens. The case is Ramirez Sanan v. United States, No. 26-cv-14864.
The suit is brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the law that lets people sue the government for the wrongful acts of its employees. The family’s lawyers, Lawyers for Civil Rights and the Boston firm Zimmer, Citron and Clarke, filed the required administrative claim with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE on December 15, 2025. Earlier reports put that claim at $1 million. The government never ruled on it, and after six months without an answer the family was free to go to court.
What the complaint says happened
According to the 49-page complaint, at about 8:30 a.m. on Friday, September 26, 2025, Ramirez Sanan was riding in the back seat of her own car as her brother-in-law drove toward the courthouse, where another brother-in-law had a 9 a.m. hearing. Her son, then 13, who has autism spectrum disorder and limited speech, was in the front passenger seat. A disability placard hung from the mirror.
Four unmarked vehicles boxed the car in and at least eight armed officers in masks, hats and sunglasses surrounded it, the complaint says. Some wore vests marked “Police”; none identified an agency. Without asking questions or giving orders, officers used a tool to shatter the two driver-side windows, sending glass onto Ramirez Sanan and the driver, then reached in to unlock the doors. One officer pointed a gun at the driver. The officers arrested both brothers-in-law.
The complaint says officers then pulled Ramirez Sanan from the car, pushed her against a chain-link fence, twisted her arms behind her back to handcuff her, kicked her and forced her to the ground face-first, and that she briefly lost consciousness. It says they pulled her son from the car, held him against the fence beside her, questioned him about his immigration status and threatened to arrest him if he did not answer or produce papers. Her daughter Michelle, then 17, who had been waiting at the courthouse, ran to the scene; the complaint says an officer grabbed her, held her wrists and told her to “shut up” when she said her brother has autism.
Ramirez Sanan, neighbors and bystanders who knew the family kept telling the officers she had legal status, the complaint says, and the officers never asked for the identification in her purse. They were dragging her, legs giving out, toward one of their vehicles when Chelsea police arrived and asked them to check her identification. The officers did, released her and left.
The injuries the family describes
The complaint says Ramirez Sanan has been unable to work since. GBH News, which reviewed the filing, reported that doctors suspected a radial nerve injury and a possible concussion, referred her to a hand surgeon and have her in occupational therapy. Her son takes medication for anxiety and depression, sees a neurologist and a physical therapist, and has migraines, crying fits and nightmares, the complaint says. Michelle had an asthma and panic attack at the scene. She testified about the stop before a congressional hearing on ICE’s treatment of children in March, and Teen Vogue featured her account.
“My family lives every day with the consequences of what ICE did to our family,” Ramirez Sanan said in a statement released by her lawyers. “I want my children to know that we will stand up to fight for ourselves and the rights of immigrants who have also suffered abuse by ICE officers.”
The complaint brings eight claims, including false imprisonment, assault and battery, emotional distress, negligent supervision and damage to the car. It asks for money damages; the amount will be set at trial. “ICE’s attack on the Ramirez Sanan family was brazen, inhumane, and deeply illegal,” said Jillian Lenson, a senior attorney at Lawyers for Civil Rights. Rachel Shalev, a partner at Zimmer, Citron and Clarke, called it “an extraordinary abuse of government power.”
What ICE says
ICE disputes the account. In statements to GBH and Boston.com, an agency spokesperson said officers “did not try to arrest Hilda Ramirez Sanan,” that the stop was a targeted vehicle stop to arrest a passenger the agency identified as Jose Ramirez-Perez, a Guatemalan national it says faces charges of indecent assault and battery and a sex offense against a child, and that the driver and passenger refused commands and tried to hide him. “Our officers used the proportionate amount of force necessary to make the arrest,” the spokesperson said. The family’s lawyers say Ramirez Sanan was not the target, had no open immigration case, and that their photographs and video contradict ICE’s version. Neither brother-in-law is a plaintiff.
The pattern the suit describes
The complaint calls the stop part of a pattern of “smash and grab” operations by masked officers during ICE’s Massachusetts surges in 2025, when Operation Patriot in May and Operation Patriot 2.0 in September produced thousands of arrests, some of people with legal status. A separate Chelsea family has sued over a Mother’s Day 2025 stop. Last week GBH released a short film about another Chelsea family, the wife and daughters of Milton Mejia, who was arrested at the Boston asylum office in September 2025 and remains detained in Louisiana.
The government has 60 days from service to answer the complaint. No hearing has been scheduled. The complaint is posted on the Lawyers for Civil Rights website. Chelsea police have not commented publicly on their officers’ role; the complaint credits them with ending the detention.