Mistaken Immigration Raid Terrorizes OK Family

This local news story out of Oklahoma is worth reading in it’s entirety. Here’s the Cliff Notes version:

A woman moved to Oklahoma from Maryland two weeks ago with her young daughters. On Thursday morning, some 20 men, armed with guns, busted through the door of their rented home, identifying themselves as federal agents with the U.S. Marshals, ICE, and the FBI. They produced a search warrant for the house that named people who do not live in the house but may be prior residents.

The woman and her girls were made to stand in their underwear in the rain. Meanwhile, officers seized their phones, laptops, and all of their cash. The woman has only been here two weeks. She has no money for gas or food. No phone or laptop to apply for jobs. The officers told her she might get her stuff back in a few months.

The woman told the local news:

My initial thought was we were being robbed—that my daughters, being females, were being kidnapped. You have guns pointed in our faces. Can you just reprogram yourself and see us as humans, as women? A little bit of mercy. Care a little bit about your fellow human, about your fellow citizen, fellow resident. We bleed too. We work. We bleed just like anybody else bleeds. We’re scared. You could see our faces that we were terrified. What makes you so much more worthier of your peace? What makes you so much more worthier of protecting your children? What makes you so much more worthy of your citizenship? What makes you more worthy of safety? Of being given the right that they took from me to protect my daughters?

-KitJ