Juanita Avila thought she was possibly being kidnapped, but now insists she was racially profiled by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Avila, a native of Guatemala who has lived in Oregon since 2014, panicked when spotting police lights flickering in her rear-view mirror as she drove along Highway 99 in Cottage Grove on November 5. The mother of three quickly pulled over and rolled down her window, she recalled on Wednesday.
One federal law enforcement official clad in green identified himself as a police officer, which frightened Avila as a longtime local resident who didn’t recognize his uniform. A man whose face was partially covered with a mask then approached Avila’s window and asked where she was born, she said.
The “surprised” 47-year-old local shop owner proceeded to ask why she was stopped.
“The other guy said, ‘Well, we are the officials and you are under arrest,” Avila wrote to Newsweek via text message.
Footage captured at the scene shows Avila screaming while accusing agents of misrepresenting themselves during the stop. Just moments earlier, Avila grabbed her phone, attempting attempt to record the brief interaction.
“That’s when they dragged me out [of] my car, [threw] me to the ground,” Avila told Newsweek.
Avila’s 19-year-old daughter, Emely Agustin, who had been following her mother in a separate car, tried to tell ICE agents her mother had permanent resident status, but Avila was detained for roughly 30 minutes before being released.
The agents repeatedly told her to calm down, said Avila, who had her permanent residency identification tucked away in her pocket.
“I screamed and said how can I calm down after you assaulted me without verifying anything,” Avila wrote Newsweek. “I had my REAL ID and my green card with me all the time.”
Asked why she believes she was initially stopped, Avila accused ICE agents of racial profiling during the November 5 incident.
“Because I’m Hispanic and driving a minivan,” she wrote. “They were just pulling over vans and trucks on their way to work.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not immediately respond to multiple inquiries by Newsweek, but denied randomly targeting men and women during last week’s enforcement actions.
“ICE conducts targeted enforcement actions in accordance with the law, focusing on individuals who violate immigration laws,” ICE spokeswoman Chrissy Cuttita told KEZI in a statement. “Claims suggesting that ICE indiscriminately targets random individuals are false and contribute to unwarranted fear within the community.”
The agency responsible for enforcing U.S. immigration laws conducts targeted enforcement actions “based on intelligence driven leads focused on aliens identified for arrest and removal,” Cuttita said.
“During lawful immigration enforcement activities in Lane County, Oregon on Nov. 5, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations teams arrested nine illegal aliens in Cottage Grove and one illegal alien in Eugene,” Cuttita’s statement continued. “None of them were lawfully in the United States and even have criminal background. One had an order of removal and another had a previous voluntary return they did not honor.”
Any person without lawful immigration status may be subject to arrest and removal, Cuttita added.
“For such aliens, the safest and most efficient option is self-deportation,” her statement concluded. “Tools such as the CBP Home app are available to support the self-deportation process.”
Cottage Grove police did not participate in the November 5 operation, Chief of Police Cory Chase told Newsweek in a statement.
“Just before 5 a.m. an agent with DHS notified on-duty staff with the Cottage Grove Police Department that they were in the city for official business,” Chase said. “No further details were provided to the Cottage Grove Police Department and our agency did not request any further details at the time of the notification.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not request resources from Cottage Grove police, Chase added.
“The Cottage Grove Police Department did not participate in any operations with the Department of Homeland Security,” the statement concluded. “We continue to follow Oregon laws and our department policy regarding immigration matters.”
Several federal, state and local Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Val Hoyle and Sen. Ron Wyden, issued a joint statement last week condemning ICE’s immigration enforcement activities.
“We are alarmed by the reported actions carried out by ICE yesterday in Lane County, which included the violent detention of several Oregonians, and by the ongoing reports of individuals not receiving their constitutionally protected rights to due process and legal representation,” the statement read. “This was only the most recent in a series of aggressive raids carried out across the state in recent months. We are working together with community leaders and local law enforcement to learn more and ensure that all of our constituents are accounted for.”
Avila said her disturbing encounter with ICE agents occurred as she was driving to assist a friend who got pulled over during the operation earlier that morning. She called her daughter in case she ran into trouble herself, including the possibility of being towed. She realized something was wrong when she noticed several out-of-state license plates, she said.
“[Which] is unusual for our small town,” Avila said of Cottage Grove, which has approximately 10,000 residents.
Roughly 150 people rallied on Monday at Coiner Park in Cottage Grove to support those impacted by the enforcement operation, including Avila and Agustin, Lookout Eugene-Springfield reported.
“My mother was not stopped because they were looking for a specific person, not because they had a warrant and not because they had reasonable suspicion, but because she was Latina and driving a van,” Agustin said. “They were stopping people of color driving to work in vans and trucks. They didn’t identify themselves as ‘immigration’ until after they threw her to the ground and were kneeling on top of her, putting her in handcuffs.”
