PORTLAND, Maine — Hassane Barry and his wife, Nene, both asylum seekers from the Republic of Guinea in West Africa, were driving home from an appointment to get their 1-month-old baby a passport last week. On Preble Street, they suddenly found themselves boxed in by four unmarked police cars.
Armed and masked federal agents stepped out and said Hassane’s name. They were here for him.
“There’s a baby in the car,” Barry told the agents. “There’s a baby.”
Agents shattered his driver’s side window. Glass sprayed over the baby’s car seat, Nene Barry said. Her husband was arrested and pulled into an unmarked police car. Officers left the scene in a matter of minutes.
Nene Barry, who does not have a driver’s license and speaks little English, was left alone inside the car with her infant.
“He did everything for us, and now he’s not here. What am I going to do alone with a 1-month-old baby in the cold?” Nene Barry said in an interview this week in French.
A small group of bystanders had gathered to document the arrest. Video provided to the Press Herald shows the immediate aftermath: Shards of glass covering the road and the inside of the car as the mother repeats “I have a baby” in broken, frantic English.
The arrest took place on Jan. 21, in the first days of what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dubbed “Operation Catch of the Day” — an intensified immigration enforcement surge in Maine that has resulted in more than 200 arrests so far. Federal officials have said the operation is meant to target “the worst of the worst” in the state.
But Hassane Barry, a 38-year-old immigrant, has no known criminal history, according to his attorney, Robin Nice of Boston. A criminal search of Barry’s name in a national database turned up no results. The Barrys have lived in the U.S. since 2023, Nice wrote in a court filing last week, and filed a request for asylum shortly after arriving.
ICE officials did not respond to a request for comment on Barry’s arrest or questions about the tactical decision to shatter the car’s window and leave the man’s family in the vehicle.
‘I almost broke down right then’
A group of around 10 bystanders watched the incident unfold from the sidewalk. Some recorded it on their phones. Agents briefly questioned Nene Barry and left the scene, leaving her and the infant inside a freezing car on the side of the road. Onlookers quickly jumped in to help.
One bystander, who asked to remain anonymous due to concerns for their safety, described walking through shattered glass as he swaddled the infant in a blanket.
“There was a car seat in the back with one of those baby blankets you get at the hospital. There were broken glass shards all over it,” he said. “I carefully pulled back the blanket and there was just this tiny peanut of a baby. He was crying.”
“I picked him up and hushed him, told him it was gonna be OK. He nuzzled into my neck and stopped crying,” the bystander added. “I almost broke down right then and there.”
Those on the scene ushered Nene and her baby into their own cars to warm up. Through broken English and translator apps, they were able to coordinate drivers who could take Nene, her baby and their car back home.
The incident, and immediate community response, didn’t feel real to Nene. It still doesn’t.
“It’s a dream,” she said. “Maybe I’ll wake up.”
‘All i worry about is you’
Thousands of Guineans, including the Barrys, have sought asylum in the U.S. following a 2021 coup that left the west African country in a state of disarray.
The family arrived in Maine without any formal education. Marticia Douglas said she began tutoring Hassane Barry on English and other subjects in late 2024.
Douglas said Barry always struck her as hardworking and eager to learn. He’d gotten a job as a tow truck driver for AAA, she said, and worked as a ride-share driver in his spare time.
“If anything is illegal, it’s taking him,” Douglas said. “They stopped him only because they saw an African couple. That’s the only basis they had.”
The couple has another child, a 13-year-old daughter who still lives in Guinea with Nene Barry’s mother. She calls every day to speak to her father, but Barry said she hasn’t had the strength to tell her he has been arrested. She keeps the phone calls very short so she doesn’t have to lie about where the girl’s father is.
A week since the arrest, Nene Barry said she’s still in shock. She can barely eat.
“At night, we cannot sleep,” she said. “The baby cries. I cry.”
Barry said she is too scared now to leave her apartment. Since her husband’s arrest, she has only gone outside once to attend a hospital appointment for her son. She has postponed her own doctor’s appointments out of fear that she will be picked up by ICE as well. Douglas and her sister have been helping to deliver groceries and communicate with a lawyer.
Hassane Barry was taken to the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Massachusetts, where ICE’s detainee locator indicates he was still being held as of Wednesday. He calls his wife twice a day, asking if she’s eating and how the baby is.
“All I worry about is you,” he says. “I left you alone without anyone, and you just gave birth. You haven’t even recovered.”
Nene Barry knows her husband is suffering, but he won’t tell her because he doesn’t want her to worry.
“He’s a good husband,” she said. “He’s an extraordinary man who loves his children. He is our pillar.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the street where Hassane Barry was arrested. It was Preble Street.
This story was originally published by the Maine Trust for Local News. Dylan Tusinski can be reached at dtusinski@pressherald.com.