Federal agents in plain clothes detained a housekeeper in a San Diego hotel parking lot as she arrived for her shift Thursday morning, in an immigration arrest caught on video that caused confusion and sparked swift pushback.<\/p>\n
The arrest took place at around 8:30 a.m. outside the Handlery Hotel in Mission Valley. The video shows two men in plain clothes \u2013 one in a neon yellow vest \u2013 restraining a woman as she screams and cries on the ground. Two other men in plain clothes can be seen standing nearby, at times between the woman and bystanders.<\/p>\n
A badge appears to hang from one man\u2019s neck, but that\u2019s seemingly the only sign that he\u2019s a member of law enforcement. A woman\u2019s coworker, who witnessed the arrest and asked not to be identified, said they initially thought the men were construction workers based on the way they were dressed.<\/p>\n
“I start recording when she was screaming,” said Amara Talavera, who witnessed the incident. “I was scared, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help her. She was asking for help, and I cannot help her.”<\/p>\n
In a statement, Homeland Security Investigations said agents and Customs and Border Protection officers arrested Brenda Valencia \u201cfor being present in the U.S. after entry without inspection.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement said Immigration and Customs Enforcement presented her with a notice to appear and released her with an ankle monitor \u201cdue to childcare issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brigette Browning, the president of San Diego\u2019s hotel workers union, said one of her members recorded the arrest and sent her the video.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was screaming. She was sobbing. She was very worried about her 11-year-old son, who was going to be left at home alone,\u201d Browning said. \u201cIt’s traumatic. It’s awful to see someone who’s not a criminal being treated worse than we treat dogs at the Humane Society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Browning said Valencia has a pending asylum case, and though she\u2019s not a member of the union, the organization is working to find her an attorney.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is like what the Nazis were doing in Germany,\u201d Browning continued. \u201cYou just show up to work, and you’re dragged away in front of your coworkers, and you’re treated like you have no value at all. I mean, is this really what America stands for?\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman\u2019s coworker said the men wrestled Valencia to the ground almost immediately and that the arrest was over in just minutes. She said they asked the men multiple times to see a warrant and were never shown one.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe couldn\u2019t even work, thinking about her screams,\u201d she said in Spanish, adding that she felt powerless, unable to help for fear of being arrested too.<\/p>\n
Browning took issue with the fact that the agents were in plain clothes.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn first glance, to me, it looks like they’re bounty hunters. It does not look like they’re official government agents,\u201d she said. \u201cSo are we just going to be accustomed now to plain clothes people attacking us and dragging us off the street? Like people don’t have to identify if they’re actually law enforcement? I mean, what does that say for our safety as Americans?\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to questions about the officers\u2019 attire and the lack of a warrant, HSI said, \u201cAgents often wear plain clothes when conducting surveillance and other law enforcement operations as in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHSI adheres to legal requirements for warrantless immigration arrests,\u201d the agency continued. \u201cAuthorized officers can arrest any alien without a warrant if they witness the alien entering or attempting to enter the U.S. illegally, or if they believe the alien is in the U.S. unlawfully and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Diego police said members of a Federal Maritime Task Force made the arrest and that the police department was not involved.<\/p>\n
San Diego City Councilmember Stephen Whitburn played the video during city council on Friday, asking, \u201cWho are those men?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not public safety. This creates public fear. It weakens trust in our government,\u201d Whitburn said. \u201cI want answers. San Diegans want answers. And we will continue to push until we get them, because we cannot allow chaos and fear to replace justice and dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal agents in plain clothes detained a housekeeper in a San Diego hotel parking lot as she arrived…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,409,19402,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-21451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-immigration","12":"tag-mission-valley","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114760302459449850","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}