The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is setting the record straight after NBC News attempted to once again smear ICE as the agency continues its work enforcing our immigration laws.
Earlier today, NBC News reported that ICE used a five-year-old autistic girl as "bait" to capture her illegal immigrant father.
ICE agents held a 5-year-old autistic girl outside her Massachusetts home to pressure her father to surrender to authorities last week, according to the girl's family. https://t.co/bJrhpL1xeI
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 23, 2025
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents held a 5-year-old autistic girl outside her Massachusetts home to pressure her father to surrender to authorities last week, according to the girl's family — an allegation that the Department of Homeland Security strongly disputes.
A video of the incident, obtained by Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra, shows a young girl surrounded by what appears to be several male law enforcement agents outside of her home in Leominster, Massachusetts, last Tuesday.
The girl is sitting beside what appears to be a law enforcement SUV and holding a bottle while encircled by the several men, according to the video.
"They took my daughter, she’s 5-years-old. She has autism spectrum," the girl's mother says in the video. "Give me my daughter back."
This is similar to a story debunked by Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin back in July, when the family of an illegal immigrant claimed he died in ICE custody, then said he'd been secretly deported to Guatemala.
DHS posted a refutation of NBC's claims on X, calling the network's smears "sick."
.@NBCNews — these smears are SICK.
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) September 23, 2025
Our ICE agents NEVER used a 5-year-old girl as ‘bait.’
The criminal illegal alien target of the operation—with previous arrests for domestic abuse, strangulation, and vandalizing property—ABANDONED HIS OWN CHILD in a car.
Edwards Hip Mejia, a… pic.twitter.com/p0Bedk5p6Q
The entire post reads:
Edwards Hip Mejia, a criminal illegal alien from Guatemala, ignored law enforcement emergency lights and darted inside his house, abandoning his 5-year-old daughter in the car.
Officers helped rescue the child and called local police to report the abandonment.
Stop the smears. Stop the lies.
DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin also denied NBC's version of the story, writing on X, "Absolutely not. ICE agents NEVER used a 5-year-old girl as “bait”—what a disgusting smear. The criminal illegal alien target —with previous arrests for domestic abuse and strangulation, among other charges—ABANDONED his own child in a car. The target, Edwards Hip Mejia, ignored law enforcement emergency lights to pull over and drove back to his house. He fled from the car, gave officers the double middle finger, and darted inside his house. He abandoned his 5-year-old daughter in the car. Officers helped rescue the child and called local police to report the abandonment."
McLaughlin called the smears "disgusting" and blamed the media for the "1000% increase in assaults against our brave law enforcement."
Buried near the bottom of the story, NBC admits the girl was returned to her family once local law enforcement showed up, and that her mother reported the child is "doing well."
Mejia was arrested two days later and is being held in a detention center in Plymouth.