What began as an ordinary Wednesday morning quickly turned frightening for Michelle Mendoza.The stay-at-home mother was taking her daughter to school in Asbury Park while her husband, Alejandro Rios, was on his way to a construction job with coworkers.Halfway to the school, Rios called with a terrifying message: He and two others believed they were being followed by vehicles carrying agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Mendoza was nearby, so she raced to the scene, where she found the men already handcuffed. As Mendoza approached her husband, she was restrained by one of the agents before being tackled to the ground, handcuffed and led into one of their cars. The scene drew spectators, several of whom filmed her arrest and shared their clips online. The encounter left the young mother with bruising on her body, Mendoza said.Both of her children, ages 9 and 1, witnessed the arrest. The scene unfolded around 7:30 a.m. on April 15 at the corner of Main Street and Bangs Avenue.Bystander videos show the woman being tackled to the ground.“What’s your name?” the bystander recording the clip was heard asking.“Michelle Mendoza, and I’m a U.S. citizen,” Mendoza said.She’s seen on camera gesturing at her vehicle, alerting bystanders to her two children in the car, still fastened in their seatbelts. One of the officers is heard on video alleging that Mendoza assaulted him as he tried to restrain her.Some agents wore masks despite New Jersey’s efforts to ban the practice.Mendoza was detained on suspicion of assaulting one of the agents, she said. She was later released without being charged. “My daughter…is traumatized,” Mendoza said. “She can’t sleep. She actually didn’t want to go to school today. I had to drop her off at one of my aunts’ because she is not okay. She’s crying for her dad.”The young mother was transported about an hour away to Delaney Hall, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Newark, where hundreds of migrants have been held amid increased immigration enforcement during President Donald Trump’s second term.Mendoza, a U.S. citizen, was released after about eight hours in custody. She said that the agents’ size and gear intimidated her and that several used crude language when referring to the young mother.“It looks like a psych ward,” Mendoza, 27, of Asbury Park, said, describing the immigrant detention facility. “It just reminded me of when I was working at a hospital.”A spokesperson for ICE’s Newark offices did not immediately respond to a request from NJ.com for comment.News of the arrest spread through Asbury Park, drawing about 200 demonstrators to protest the encounter. Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone was among them.“I’m not voting to send ICE another penny, and I voted this week to protect immigrants—like our Haitian neighbors—from losing their protected status,” Pallone wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.Democratic Sen. Vince Gopal and Assemblymembers Luanne Peterpaul and Margie Donlon urged the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office to intervene.“ICE’s actions of separating families and targeting U.S. citizens continue to be horrific and unacceptable,” the legislators said in a statement Monday. “We have been in contact with the family to offer our support and to connect them with resources.”The attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.Asbury Park Police Director John Hayes said local law enforcement did not take part in the arrests under New Jersey rules limiting cooperation with ICE.“Our officers do not participate in federal immigration enforcement actions, and they cannot interfere with them either,” Hayes said in a statement.Rios and two other men with him in the car — Andy Quintanar, 25, and Alfredo Quintanar Sr., 48 — remain in ICE custody. Andy Quintanar was transferred to a detention facility in Texas, according to ICE arrest records. All three have lived in the U.S. for many years, working in construction while fighting to stay in the country legally, said Alfredo Quintanar Jr., the detainee’s son.“He’s been paying his taxes for 20 years,” Alfredo Quintanar Jr. said. “We tried multiple times to try to fix his status.”Rios came to the U.S. in 2015 from Mexico and met his wife in 2018. Mendoza had a daughter at the time, and the child and Rios became inseparable, Mendoza said. The couple married in 2021, but the cost of pursuing legal status through his wife has been prohibitive.“He’s the love of my life, that’s why I married him,” Mendoza said. “I can’t sleep either. I’ve been running on two to three hours of sleep since this happened.”