For the past year, Norma had parked her brown-and-beige camper van outside [Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey]…most weekends. Converted into a mobile clinic, it was stocked with sutures, glucometers and trauma and CPR kits, and offered health checks to families and protesters. That day, the clinic was busier than usual.

“Can you come over here?” someone asked.

Norma followed, thinking a person may need first aid. Instead, she encountered a wall of two dozen ICE agents in paramilitary vests, carrying batons, tasers and firearms, most of their faces masked.

… Norma looked down and saw a federal agent dragging a young woman across the ground, her bright pink shirt ripping off, until she was down to a black bra.

“Help me!” the young woman shouted. Decades earlier, as a psychiatric nurse, Norma had watched colleagues reach for restraints and sedatives when patients became violent. Her instinct was different: “No, let me talk to him.” She would sit beside them and try to calm them down.

Now that same instinct kicked in: de-escalate the situation and help the woman being dragged across the ground. Norma felt herself going into “mom mode”, moving closer.

That’s when someone from behind yanked her up. An ICE agent in a cap, black facemask, and gloved hands reached for her arms from behind her. She felt her body fling through the air.