‘Where is your humanity?’: A nurse says it’s what she would ask the ICE agents who she says threw her to the ground at Delaney Hall in New Jersey

A Kean University professor and nurse has filed a $500,000 claim against the federal government, saying ICE agents threw her to the ground outside Delaney Hall, a Newark facility that holds immigration detainees, on Memorial Day. According to The Guardian, Norma Bowe, 69, was running a mobile health clinic from a camper van outside the facility when it happened on May 25.

The report says Bowe was listening to the lungs of a 10-year-old girl who was hyperventilating over her father being held inside when someone asked her to come over. There she met a line of roughly 24 ICE agents wearing vests, most of them masked, facing protesters, some of whom were holding up phones to record.

Bowe saw an agent pulling a young woman along the pavement as the woman shouted “Help me!” When Bowe moved closer, a gloved agent wearing a cap and a dark face covering took hold of her arms from the back, and she was sent flying. Video shows her landing face down on the sidewalk. One bystander yelled, “She’s a medical professional!”

A six-month wait before court

The claim was filed in July by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, one of 54 filed in 17 states plus the District of Columbia. It says a masked agent pushed her from the rear as another closed in from her right side, launching her off the ground before she hit the pavement. Her injuries include a concussion, a fractured kneecap and meniscus tears, along with bruising near her left eye.

“I was violently attacked by ICE agents while I was trying to provide medical care for people visiting their loved ones in Delaney Hall,” Bowe said in the ACLU’s announcement. She has also said, “I was not there as a protester.” The Department of Homeland Security has described the encounter as one with “rioters” who “obstructed law enforcement,” saying officers “used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and federal property.”

Claims like this one go through the Federal Tort Claims Act. Under 28 U.S.C. 2675, a person must first present the claim to the agency, and “the failure of an agency to make final disposition of a claim within six months after it is filed shall, at the option of the claimant any time thereafter, be deemed a final denial of the claim.”

UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz said such claims “are essentially negligence claims” that are “brought against the United States, and not against individual officers.” She said a judge rather than a jury decides these cases, and punitive damages are not available. The report says Bowe may never learn who the agents were.

If she could face them unmasked, she said, she would ask: “What if I was your mother or sister?” and “Where is your humanity?”