ICE shackles and detains US-born woman in Lafayette, Louisiana, and their defense is ‘a lot of people a lot of times have forged IDs’

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, recently detained a U.S.-born woman at a checkpoint in Lafayette, Louisiana, sparking serious concerns about rights violations. This young mother of four, a Spanish speaker, was already anxious because her baby daughter was running a high fever. She certainly wasn’t expecting what happened next after she showed her identification.

When agents requested her ID and Social Security card, they insisted both were fake. What followed was a truly awful ordeal. She was detained, handcuffed, shackled at the ankles, and interrogated. Ultimately, ICE transported her to the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, where they held her for about five hours, away from her sick child. A lawyer eventually intervened on her behalf, leading to her release, as reported by The Lens.

The woman, who asked that her name not be published due to fear of retaliation against herself and her family, described how her ordeal began early Wednesday. Her 7-year-old daughter was waiting for the school bus when she noticed ICE agents at the entrance to her apartment complex. She wasn’t worried for herself, since she was born in Colorado, but she feared for her daughter, who is Mexican-American.

This whole situation is just unacceptable, especially when you consider she’s a U.S. citizen

However, when the mother approached the checkpoint on foot around 8 a.m., a deputy from the Lafayette Sheriff’s Office waved her over and demanded identification. She presented her state-issued Louisiana ID and Social Security card, documents she always keeps on her. Initially, she wasn’t worried, explaining through a translator, “I wasn’t hiding anything. I’m not doing anything illegal.”

But the deputies were insistent, claiming both her ID and Social Security card were fake. They questioned her about her birthplace. She answered, yet they soon called over ICE agents, who also accused her of providing a forged ID. One agent told her, “Who is making these IDs in numbers for you guys? Because I also have another one from another person, and it looks just like this. So they are fake. Yours is fake too.” When she tried to explain, they told her to stay silent.

For the next 20 minutes, she said, the agents made her wait. She saw them talking on the phone, unsure if the call was about her, but they kept returning to insist her ID was forged. Agents then detained her, put her into a white unmarked vehicle, and took her to what appeared to be an unlisted U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field office in Lafayette.

While not listed on the official USCIS website, two other Lafayette residents confirmed that ICE uses this office for detained individuals. They noted it has government seals on its signage and framed photos of President Trump and Vice President JD Vance on the wall.

Inside this office, she was handcuffed and shackled at the ankles. Agents interrogated her, demanding that she name the person who “did these fake papers for you.” She pleaded with them to contact authorities in Colorado to verify her Social Security card, even providing additional paperwork from her phone, including tax documents for the IRS. It’s wild that even with all that proof, they still didn’t believe her.

This harrowing experience really highlights how ICE’s aggressive new policies and warrantless arrests are leading to what legal experts are calling an alarming pattern of rights violations against both immigrants and U.S. citizens.

It turns out the woman was incorrectly assigned an Alien Registration number in 2022 when she entered the U.S. from Mexico and presented a Mexican ID at the border. At that time, a lawyer told her that since she was a U.S. citizen, her immigration case would be dropped. Yet, somehow, the case apparently proceeded without her knowledge or involvement. An immigration judge in New Orleans even issued a final order of removal in January 2024.

To make things even more frustrating, a review of a copy of the woman’s ID quickly confirmed its authenticity. By simply entering her name and license number into the state’s official digital credential app, LA Wallet, the app brought up an image of the same ID with her photo, full name, and date of birth, identifying the ID as valid. Furthermore, a copy of her birth certificate also lists the same full name and date of birth, confirming her place of birth in Colorado. It shouldn’t be this hard to verify someone’s identity.

Accusations of forgery seem to be a common tactic in the ICE playbook, especially with Latino individuals, as recounted by other U.S. citizens who have been detained. The woman echoed this, saying, “They kept telling me I’m a criminal because I’m showing false papers, and that my penalty was going to be much higher because I’m hiding the person who created them.”