Journalism of Courage
A US citizen has alleged that she was chased by masked federal immigration agents near her house in New Orleans, Louisiana, due to her ethnicity. Jacelynn Guzman, a US citizen, was walking back to her home in Marrero from a trip to the grocery store on Wednesday when an unmarked SUV pulled up next to her.
Surveillance video from the incident shows two masked federal agents approaching her, after which the 23-year-old started running. As she was running, a second vehicle arrived, and the agents pursued her down the sidewalk until she reached her family’s home, the video showed.
“I was walking and the first car pulled up on the side of me and I thought it was an Uber,” Guzman told NBC News.
According to Guzman, she was born in the US, and even her mother has lived there her entire life in Marrero, New Orleans.
“We’re legal, we are from here, born and raised,” Guzman told the agents. “Don’t chase me, that is disgusting.”
According to The Associated Press, Guzman has no criminal record.
“That was my only thought that they were going to take me and I wasn’t going to get to have a say in that decision,” Guzman said. “Because most likely they didn’t care that I was saying I was a US citizen. So why would they care what else I had to say?”
Another video, shared by her family, showed Guzman’s stepfather shouting at five agents from inside the property line.
The agents left in two SUVs shortly afterward, the video showed.
Over the past few days, New Orleans has become the scene of what the Department of Homeland Security is calling a “targeted immigration enforcement operation.”
Criticising the crackdown, New Orleans’ mayor-elect Helena Moreno, expressed “deep concern over recent actions,” which she said are already causing harm and encounters between masked agents and residents.
Responding to the criticisms, the Department of Homeland Security said Border Patrol had been searching for a “criminal illegal alien previously charged with felony theft and convicted of illegal possession of stolen property.”
DHS said the agents “encountered a female matching the description of the target” and that agents identified themselves and left when they realized Guzman was not who they were seeking.
Guzman, however, rejected the DHS claim and said she was targeted due to her skin colour. She told The Guardian that she thinks she was pursued because “I’m brown”.
Guzman said she couldn’t help but believe the agents who chased her might be “racially profiling all people of color”.
Her stepfather, Anglin, also said Guzman was stopped solely because of her appearance.
“Just because you look brown, you look Hispanic, you’re going to get stopped,” he told AP. “Because now it doesn’t matter you have papers, you speak English or you are a citizen, it’s not enough.”
