by Nicole Foy and McKenzie Funk

This story contains videos and descriptions of violent arrests.

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A month into the new Trump administration, on the predawn streets of suburban Maryland, a high-ranking ICE official stood alongside a Mazda sedan that his officers had just stopped.

The official told a local TV reporter at the scene what was about to happen. “He can either give us a license,” he said, “or we’ll smash the fucking window out and drag him out.” Then, as the driver refused to exit the car, officers broke the glass.

It was one of nearly 50 documented instances of immigration agents breaking vehicle windows that ProPublica has identified from social media, local news accounts, lawsuits and interviews since President Donald Trump took office six months ago. Using the same methods, we found just eight in the previous decade. Neither number is comprehensive. The government releases no relevant statistics.

Use-of-force experts and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement insiders say the tactic was rarely used during previous administrations. They say there is no known policy change greenlighting agents’ smashing of windows. Rather, it’s a part of a broader shattering of norms.

There are arrest quotas, and they are increasingly aggressive. “There’s been an emphasis placed on speed and numbers that did not exist before,” says Deborah Fleischaker, who served as ICE chief of staff under President Joe Biden.

Officers who break glass aren’t being disciplined — they’re being promoted. The official from Maryland, Matthew Elliston, now occupies a senior position at headquarters and oversees field operations on the East Coast. On the other side of the country, a Border Patrol chief who also embraced the tactic, Gregory Bovino, was put in charge of sweeps in Los Angeles. (Neither answered ProPublica’s questions.)

ICE says its officers use a “minimum amount of force” when making arrests. You can judge for yourself.

Watch video ➜

“She is pregnant!” a man yelled as his wife, a U.S. citizen, filmed from inside their Chevy. “Is pregnant! Is pregnant!”

Officers smashed through three windows to arrest Jeison Ruiz Rodriguez and his younger brother César in early March. The video was not the first under Trump — at least nine broken-windows arrests preceded it this year, some documented by Facebook posts or local reporters or Spanish-language TV.

Watch video ➜

On Mother’s Day in the Boston suburbs, ICE and FBI officers stopped a family on their way to church, threatening Daniel Flores-Martinez with what the family and a bystander believe was a gun. His three children and U.S. citizen wife sobbed in the car. Agents broke the window, forced Martinez to his knees, then slammed him roughly to the ground.

One of the children is a toddler. Another is a 12-year old with severe disabilities.

The incident was captured by then-high school student Kenneth Santizo, who was nearby waiting for his bus. “All I could hear was kids crying,” Santizo said.

Watch video ➜

Last month, a bystander filmed several masked agents using a baton to break a rear window of a white pickup truck, taking the driver to the ground and pressing his head forcefully into the asphalt. The man, last seen........

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