ICE agents swarmed Evelyn, an 18-year-old girl in Hoffman Estates, Illinois just for trying to warn her neighbors about ICE activity early last October. The ICE agents dragged her out of the car, throwing her to the ground, with one agent putting his knee on her back while she screamed. What’s even worse is DHS tried to claim the video was from a totally different case over a year ago, but it was clearly her and it clearly happened that day.
In the video unmarked cars arrive and the agents get out and start swarming the vehicle on a driveway, and then agents yanking her out of the car while she’s yelling “I’m not resisting” over and over.
You can hear her voice getting more panicked as they force her down and then there’s this moment where the officer has his knee on her back while she’s facedown on the ground with her hands behind her back. People around are filming and shouting and the whole thing feels chaotic and violent-like way too much force for some teenager who was literally just in the car.
She was a US citizen who wasn’t even the target, and they still put her in handcuffs and held her for hours before releasing her without charges (cbs chicago).The whole thing is just terrifying. Like you can’t even look at what they’re doing without becoming a target yourself.
My stomach dropped when I saw the video because it’s just wrong to handle a teenage girl like that. I kept thinking, “that could be me, that could be anyone.”
I was thinking that it could be my friends or my family.
I’m a U.S. citizen. Born in Van Nuys, California. I’ve got a birth certificate, a Social Security number and a passport that I’ve never used. That should matter. That should be armor. But that video scared me because I know citizenship isn’t always a shield when you look like me.
I’m Hispanic. Mexican-American, with brown skin, dark hair, brown eyes. ICE doesn’t ask for papers first. They look at you and they decide.
ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They enforce immigration laws, conduct deportations and operate in communities through raids, workplace enforcement and street-level arrests.
ICE operates throughout Arizona, including Phoenix. In 2019, ICE conducted a high-profile raid of a local furniture factory in the West Valley, detaining dozens of workers (Gonzalez, Arizona Republic). More recently, ICE has increased “targeted enforcement” in Maricopa County, including traffic stops and neighborhood operations that don’t require warrants.
U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE. The most documented case is that of Julio Cesar Ovalle, a U.S. citizen born in Los Angeles who was arrested by ICE agents in 2019 and held for three weeks before the government acknowledged its error .
Racial profiling in immigration enforcement looks like “Mexican-looking” being probable cause. It looks like agents waiting outside churches, schools, stores and in Latino neighborhoods.
According to ACLU, ICE frequently relies on “assumptions about people’s immigration status based on their race, ethnicity and language” rather than actual evidence, a practice that violates constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.
I have rights. I can refuse to answer questions about my citizenship or immigration status. I can refuse to let agents enter my home without a judicial warrant signed by a judge-not an ICE administrative warrant. I should carry my state ID, and understand that ICE cannot detain me without reasonable suspicion. Even the Immigrant Legal Resource Center advises: You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to refuse a search.
My parents have told me to take my ID with me everywhere and not to stay out too late. “If you see police or any dark cars, or white vans immediately leave the area and walk home” they say. “Stay safe and only hang around the areas I know,” they say. “Keep your phone at 100% and check notifications if ICE is anywhere around,” they say.
Sometimes I think I should just carry my birth certificate—not the original, a copy-folded in my wallet where my ID is.
But here are my honest thoughts: I’m fifteen, and I’m making a plan to prove I belong here in this country. That shouldn’t be my job. But I’m doing it anyway, because being scared isn’t the same as being helpless, and l’d rather be ready than be sorry.
