The week that the Los Angeles School District (LAUSD) returned to school, a 15-year-old San Fernando High School student with mental disabilities was wrongfully detained by federal immigration authorities outside of Arleta High School.
The family alleges, in a $1-million damage claim filed Monday against the President Donald Trump administration, the actions of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents were “unconstitutional racial profiling” of a United States citizen and “violated the Fourth Amendment.”
On Aug. 11, the claim states, “ICE and Border Patrol agents illegally and unlawfully retrained at gunpoint [a student], who is a special needs U.S. citizen,” and detained him “based on the practice of unconstitutional racial profiling” which has caused him to suffer physical and emotional injuries.
The Trump administration has denied any wrongdoing, stating that it was a case of mistaken identity and that they were targeting an MS-13 member who bore a resemblance to the child.
“Thankfully, I was there to protect my son,” said the boy’s mother, Andreina Mejia. “If I weren’t there, who would have protected him? Nobody.”
She recounted the details of that fateful morning at a press conference Tuesday outside LAUSD headquarters.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” said Mejia, who has lived in the San Fernando Valley for more than 20 years. “I felt like we were in a horror movie.”
Mejia and her son were in their car outside of Arleta High School, waiting for his sister to register for classes, when a white truck drove up so quickly she thought it was going to hit her vehicle.
At least two masked men approached with guns drawn, she said, and pulled them out of the car. Her son was immediately placed in handcuffs without being questioned, despite telling the agents that he was a 15-year-old citizen with developmental disabilities.
“I looked at my son’s reaction, and I saw that he was scared,” Mejia said. “He didn’t know what was going on.’”
Because her son has difficulty processing language and expressing himself, she was worried that his disability could put him at a greater risk. What if he made a wrong move and something bad happened? She recalled thinking in that moment.
“My concern as a mother was, I have to protect my son,” she said.
She pleaded with the officers and volunteered to retrieve her son’s identification from their home down the street. After around seven minutes, the officers concluded they had detained the wrong person. When they removed the handcuffs from her son’s wrists, he rushed to her, crying and immediately embracing her, she recalled.
One officer joked, “You’re gonna have an exciting story to tell your friends when you go back to school,” Mejia recounted.
“There’s nothing exciting about getting guns pointed at you, especially when you’re a 15 year old,” she exclaimed.
Mejia said her son has been experiencing nightmares, is afraid to go to school and fears that every car with tinted windows is ICE.
“Every time we go out, he looks at his surroundings,” she said. “I mean, what kids should go out not feeling safe?”
LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho addressed the incident at a press conference earlier this month.
“This young man was placed in handcuffs, presumably based on mistaken identity,” Carvalho said. “The release will not release him from what he experienced. … The trauma will linger.”
Bystander video taken immediately after the detainment shows at least eight masked men in plain clothes with tactical vests present at the scene. A second video reveals that the agents dropped unused ammunition outside the school.
The principal of Arleta High called the LA School Police Department when the incident occurred, according to Carvalho. When they called the federal agency and requested that they retrieve the bullets they left behind, Carvalho said the response the district received was, “You guys can keep them and use them at the target practice range.”
“That example says all we need to know about why these actions should not be taking place around schools,” said Carvalho.
At Tuesday’s press conference, Mejia’s attorneys called on LAUSD to issue directives to protect all students against immigration officials and to release video footage from the school’s security camera that captured the incident. The district has declined requests for the video, citing privacy restrictions.
“Please note that the district has been working closely with city leaders and municipal partners, and we have strengthened safety measures at and around our schools,” LAUSD said in a statement following the press conference. “This includes enhanced communication with various entities, visible presence in impacted communities and rapid-response protocols should enforcement activity occur.”
Mejia’s attorneys further called on Trump to issue an executive order to prevent immigration officials from conducting activities near schools.
“President Trump, we need you to do the right thing,” said attorney Christian Contreras. “Students must be protected, students need to learn and students should not be subjected to excessive force, wrongful detention and having guns drawn at them.”
In a statement on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described the legal claim as a “case study of billboard law firms trying to turn family resemblance into racial animus to collect clicks, clout and cash.”
“Allegations that Border Patrol targeted Arleta High School are FALSE,” the statement read. “Agents were conducting a targeted operation on [a] criminal illegal alien … a Salvadoran national and suspected MS-13 pledge with prior criminal convictions in the broader vicinity of Arleta. Thanks to the help of family members who worked with Border Patrol, this suspected MS-13 gang member with a previous gun-related conviction is no longer on the streets of LA.”
The day of the incident, DHS alleged that Mejia cooperated in their investigation, which they said led to the arrest of the boy’s cousin, an unauthorized immigrant with ties to MS-13.
Attorneys said DHS statements were complete misrepresentations of the situation – that Mejia had no part in aiding their investigation, since the apprehended man is of a different nationality with no relation to the family.
“The entire statement that was issued by the DHS is a pure falsehood,” said Michael Carrillo. “This family is a Mexican American family. They have no Salvadoran relatives as part of their immediate family. … There is no relation between this MS-13 gang member that they supposedly apprehended near Arleta, and our clients.”
“There’s no resemblance, except for the brown color [of their skin],” Luis Carrillo added. “We have here an army of occupation sent by Trump, and the results are civil rights violations, constitutional violations [and] racial profiling.”
The claim was filed with the DHS, ICE, Border Patrol and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This type of claim provides the government entities with the opportunity to assess and compensate the alleged victims before any litigation is pursued.
“I just hope that there’s a change,” said Mejia about the outcome of this claim. “[So that] we don’t have to be going outside, living with fear. I just don’t want my kids to grow up living in fear that they can’t go outside because they could be targeted.”
—The Trump administration has denied any wrongdoing, stating that it was a case of mistaken identity and that they were targeting an MS-13 member who bore a resemblance to the child.
Seems to me the above illustrates there was wrongdoing.