Cell phone footage caught the moment Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents broke the window of an alleged illegal alien MS-13 member and yanked her out of the vehicle after she refused to step out willingly.
According to FOX5 in D.C., 51-year-old Elsy Berrios was supposedly on her way to work when she was pulled over by law enforcement. After being asked to step out of the vehicle, Berrios asked in Spanish to see a warrant, then appeared to roll up the window, telling the officers in Spanish that she wasn’t getting out. The next few moments were caught on camera by her 18-year-old daughter, Karen Cruz Berrios, who was sitting in the passenger seat.
After refusing to comply with the officers’ request, agents broke Berrios’ window and forcibly hauled her from the vehicle, while her daughter went into hysterics.
ICE removes MS-13 member from her car pic.twitter.com/oS3QYrYbCO
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 10, 2025
ICE claims Berrios entered the country illegally in 2017 and is a “known affiliate” of the notoriously violent transnational Salvadoran gang MS-13, which is heavily present and active along the East Coast and in the DC area.
"Elsy Noemi Berrios, 51, is an illegal alien, Salvadoran national, and known affiliate of the violent transnational street gang, MS-13," ICE said in a statement.
Related: Ay Dios Mio! Organizers in Chicago Cancel Cinco de Mayo Parades Over Fear of ICE Raids
ICE added that "U.S. Border Patrol in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, arrested Berrios on Jan. 26, 2017, after she illegally entered the United States. She was transported to the McAllen Border Patrol Station in McAllen, Texas, and processed under expedited removal. A Department of Justice immigration judge issued Berrios a notice to appear on Feb. 10, 2017. Berrios was released from custody on Feb. 16, 2017, under the ICE Alternatives to Detention program.”
Similarly, the Department of Homeland Security put out a statement alleging that "This individual [Elsy] has been identified as an associate of the vicious MS-13 gang,” adding that “Americans can rest assured that she is off our streets and locked up. I hope the media will stop doing the bidding of these gangs that murder, maim, rape, and terrorize Americans, while the media ignores the innocent victims."
Berrios’ lawyer claims she is seeking asylum in the U.S. and has been working the same job in Maryland for six years while she waits for her immigration hearing. She had already been given an order of removal at one point, but it was dropped in 2023 under the Biden administration, her attorney added. He also claims that ICE has provided no arrest warrant, nor evidence of Berrios’ alleged gang affiliation.
She is now being held at an ICE detention facility in Pennsylvania.
Berrios’ daughter, Karen, said ICE agents had previously shown up to her mother’s home on two separate occasions, but that they had been denied entry because they couldn’t produce a warrant.
While a 50-something-year-old woman is hardly the first thing one thinks of when imagining a typical MS-13 gangbanger, and while it certainly doesn’t prove that this woman is one, Berrios - if she’s what ICE and DHS says she is - certainly wouldn’t be the first female MS-13 affiliate to be arrested for being illegally present or associated with the criminal enterprise.
A 24-year-old woman associated with MS-13 was sentenced last October to 50 years in federal prison for her role in luring four young men to their brutal deaths at the hands of more than a dozen gang members, who ambushed and slaughtered their victims using machetes, knives and tree limbs in a park on Long Island.
Earlier this month, ICE also arrested 40-year-old Silvia Lorena Bonilla-De Jandres in the D.C. suburb of Alexandria, Virginia. According to an ICE statement, Bonilla-De Jandres is “an illegal Salvadoran national and documented member of the notorious MS-13 street gang wanted in El Salvador for extortion, blackmail and terrorist affiliation.”
Now I'm just spitballing here, but maybe if we asked for some ID at the border and simply turned people away if they don't have any legal claim to enter the United States, we wouldn't be having to sort out this mess out on the side of a Maryland road.