Gulfport family detained by ICE after New Orleans court hearing; attorney arrested

GULFPORT, Miss. (WLOX) — A Honduran family living in Gulfport was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers after an immigration court hearing in New Orleans on April 16, and their attorney was arrested while recording the incident.

Natasha Porsche was representing the family of five, asylum seekers who have lived in Gulfport since 2021, when the confrontation occurred.

“He pushes me and then he screams, ‘You go to jail because you assaulted an ICE agent. You assaulted a federal agent,’ when I never, ever touched him,” Porsche said.

The family had filed for voluntary departure, but the government opposed the request, claiming a prior order of deportation was in place.

However, no prior order of deportation was submitted as evidence.

The judge reset the trial for next month. But when the parents and three children walked out of the courtroom, ICE officers were waiting to detain the parents.

Attorney arrested while recording

Porsche started recording, as did one of the children.

“I’m standing and making the video of all of this, and suddenly, this person approached me kind of doing like that towards me, towards my phone sort of like ‘Put it away. Put it away,’” Porsche said.

An officer shouted “Don’t touch me ma’am,” and then three officers surrounded Porsche, knocking her papers and phone to the ground.

In five seconds, the attorney went from documenting her clients’ arrest to being under arrest.

She received a citation for assault on a federal officer and was released later that day.

Children left without parents

Porsche’s clients are still in custody in separate detention centers in Louisiana. Their oldest son is now in charge.

“And I just take the car, drive it one hour, 30 minutes or something, and listen to my sister crying, my little brother crying, and just driving, thinking what I’m going to do. I’m not a little boy, you know. I’m not a man too, but I have to do what I have to do,” the son said.

He said his sister feels like her world is falling apart.

“Sometime she comes to me crying, telling ‘What’s going to happen? Are we going to see our parents again?’ What answer you got for that? I no got answer for that,” he said.

The family’s youngest child is a U.S. citizen. The parents had been working to get the child a passport before voluntarily leaving.

The family’s attorney is pursuing juvenile visas for the two older children, but said there is no helping the parents, who will likely be deported.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

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