BREAKING🚨 ICE deported a New Haven mom of two U.S.-citizen kids. Now when her 9-year-old autistic son breaks down at school, they have to call her in Mexico. Her voice on the phone is the only thing that calms him. Nancy Martinez was pulling away from the curb on June 9, 2025, driving her 13-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son to school, when three ICE vehicles boxed in her car. Agents yelled at her in English, which she doesn't speak, and handcuffed her while her son cried on the sidewalk. Her lawsuit says nobody ever showed her a warrant. She was due in court that same morning. The case came from an argument with her sister-in-law over babysitting. The state had agreed to drop the charges if she took anger management classes, and she had already started them. Homeland Security says she had a criminal history and that officers made sure her mother, who was visiting from Mexico, could watch the kids. Her lawsuit says the agents never spoke to the grandmother. It says they drove off and left both children "standing in the street without a known legal guardian." ICE also says it "does not separate families" and asks parents whether they want their kids sent with them. Martinez says nobody ever asked her. Her husband had filed for a U visa, which is for crime victims, and her name was on the petition. ICE still refused to put her deportation on hold. About a month after the arrest she was shackled, flown to Brownsville, Texas, and deported across the border at Matamoros. Now she sells clothes from a small tent outside Mexico City, as Laura Tillman first reported in CT Mirror. She calls her kids every day before school, after school and at bedtime. Her son has autism. He has walked up to a security guard at his school and demanded to know why they took his mother. According to the lawsuit, he no longer sleeps in his own room because he's afraid someone will take his sister too. His sister is 14 now. In the summer she sells flan and chocolate-covered strawberries to help support the family. She turns 15 in January, and her mother is planning her quinceañera from 2,000 miles away. In June, Martinez sued the federal government with help from Yale Law School's immigrant rights clinic. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said, "Nancy Martinez did everything right. ICE did everything wrong." Even if she wins, the lawsuit can't bring her home to her children.