Being an American-born citizen did not protect 15-year-old Baldomar Gutierrez, who is autistic and hard of hearing, from being wrongfully detained at gunpoint by ICE in Arleta.
Immigration officials later said it was a case of mistaken identity, but Baldomar’s mother believes racial profiling was at play. And now a petition on Baldomar’s behalf, along with that of other U.S. citizens, is urging the United Nations to investigate the mistreatment of Latinos in this country.
“I want justice for my son,” stated Andreina Mejia, 35, the teen’s mother, in an exclusive interview with the San Fernando Valley Sun/El Sol.
Mejia hopes the petition would bring international scrutiny to what she called “unjust treatment” of many American citizens – and particularly to Latinos like her child – now getting caught up in the recent ICE raids against undocumented immigrants across the country.
The petition was filed with the U.N.’s Human Rights Council this month by two civil rights attorneys, including Christian Contreras, who represents Baldomar. It calls for the investigation of the “Human Rights violations committed by the current U.S. Administration and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol in their handling of the Latino minority within the United States.”
“What we’re seeing now by this administration is despicable, disgusting, and it’s waging war against its own people, and how it is engaging in these unconstitutional, vile and inhumane immigration enforcement,” said Contreras at a Sept. 22 press conference announcing the petition.
Detentions and Mistreatment
The claim states that many U.S.-born Latinos have been “detained, beaten, and arrested without due process of law” and describes the detention campaign as “kidnapping” by masked immigration agents. It also accuses the federal immigration officers of conducting “roundups” of immigrants and U.S. citizens during a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the nation’s Latino population.
Those responsible for the alleged human rights violations, according to the claim, are “the United States Government Under the President Donald J. Trump Administration, special presidential advisor Stephen Miller, U.S. Border Patrol Head Gregory Bovino, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.”
“Donald Trump wants to make this country an apartheid society and he loves [Afrikaners] and people from Norway, but he hates Mexicans and he hates Latinos,” said Luis Carillo, the other attorney behind the petition. He added that the move became necessary after the U.S. Supreme Court sided with what he called Trump’s “outlaw presidency.”
Added Carrillo, “We need the United Nations to investigate all the human rights abuses currently in this country.”
About 60,000 people have been arrested by ICE since it launched raids this year as part of a major immigration crackdown promised by President Donald Trump. During his 2024 campaign, Trump said he would go after violent criminal immigrants. However, reportedly, more than 70 percent of those in ICE detention have no criminal convictions. Of those with convictions, many had committed minor infractions, such as traffic violations.
According to a June study by the Cato Institute, 93 percent of those in immigration custody had no violent convictions.
Numerous Latino citizens, including those who are American by birth, naturalization, or legal residency, have been detained during immigration raids. They include a pregnant Los Angeles woman who went to the hospital after ICE agents arrested her, as well as a man who alleges that ICE agents refused to review official immigration documents that proved his legal resident status. Both individuals appeared at a press conference held by their attorneys this week.
“I was threatened by one of the ICE agents who said I would be killed if I didn’t comply,” said Cary Lopez Alvarado, who was nine months pregnant at the time of her arrest. She had called 911 for help.
Holding her daughter in her arms at the press conference, Alvarado claimed that she was also shoved during her arrest and threatened with deportation to Mexico, even though she is an American citizen. After being released the same day of her detention, she said she experienced sharp pains in her stomach and went to the hospital, where she learned that she had gone into labor one week before her due date.
Juan Rivas, a day laborer, said that he was arrested while looking for work at a Home Depot earlier this summer. He mentioned that he attempted to show ICE agents a letter from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services indicating that he was a legal resident, but the agents refused to read it.
“They hit me and threw me down; they treated me like I was a criminal,” Rivas said in Spanish, adding that he was later released from detention after someone finally read the letter.
The U.N. petition has the support of Congressmember Maxine Waters and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta. Waters, who is African American, represents LA’s 43rd District, which has a Latino majority. Huerta, a veteran civil rights activist, co-founded the United Farm Workers with the late union leader Cesar Chavez. Both women attended the press conference.
“Not Criminals”
Waters said she has heard “terrifying accounts” from residents in her district, which encompasses southern L.A. and parts of Gardena, Inglewood and Torrance.
“Over the past months, immigrants and United States citizens have reported being stopped by masked or unidentified officers, questioned about where they were born, detained without a clear legal basis, beaten and separated from loved ones,” she said. In one case, Waters noted, a school contacted her office after immigration agents took a young student without notifying his family.
“These (people) are not criminals,” she emphasized.
Latinos aren’t the only minorities impacted by the ICE raids, Waters said. According to the Congressmember, many other minority citizens and other legal residents—including those of Haitian and Caribbean as well as African descent—also face the risk of detention by immigration agents.
Huerta said, “It’s an embarrassment (to see) the United States…the champion of democracy, allowing this to happen right now, in our own country.” She also encouraged people to sign the petition, which is available on the website change.org under “Appeal to the United Nations for Human Rights Violations by Federal Officials in the US.”
Mejia said she welcomed the support of Waters and Huerta, and also asked Valley residents to support the petition.
“My son was targeted because of his appearance, because he’s Latino. No one should be targeted because of the color of their skin,” she said.
Trump’s DOJ is too busy trying to get to the bottom of who shut down the elevator at the UN. Ya’ know: staff that “really matters”.
Actually, the DOJ is busy prosecuting corrupt liberals and keeping Americans safe.