California-based writer Sandra Hernandez worked as an interviewer for Underground America, and recently wrote this article for the Daily Journal on an appalling home raid conducted by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agents:
“Sisters, One a Legal Citizen, Charged After Home Raid”
When federal immigration agents arrived at Edna Funes’ Van Nuys home this month, the 46-year-old Guatemalan national refused to open the door.
Thirty minutes later, Funes sat handcuffed in a van. Her 5-year-old U.S.-born son stood alone in the apartment. And Funes’ sister, a naturalized citizen who witnessed the arrest, tearfully rode alongside her.
Edna, and her sister Elva, now face federal criminal charges for allegedly assaulting, intimidating and interfering with four immigration agents during the July 10 home raid.
Their arrests come as federal immigration officials step up enforcement of existing laws, increasingly turning to worksite and home raids.
But until now few immigrants have faced federal charges of assaulting agents.
“It’s very unusual for agents to file such charges, but they will when it’s appropriate,” said Lori K. Haley, a spokeswoman with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that overseas such raids.
“We’ve never heard of something like this,” said Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. The group has helped organize a raid assistance network to assist immigrants detained during raids.
Elva Funes, however, believes her story is unusual because she is a U.S. citizen who agents mistook for an undocumented immigrant.
“I think they arrested me to protect themselves because they didn’t realize I was a U.S. citizen,” said Elva, 52. “The agents kept saying to me, ‘Shut up, we are going to deport you.’”
She said agents repeatedly threatened to deport her yet never asked if she was a legal resident.
Immigration officials declined to comment on whether agents inquired about Funes’ status.
ICE ’s Haley said the agency would not provide additional information beyond court documents filed against the women.
Elva, who is barely 5 feet tall and weighs 140 pounds, has no criminal history, according to her attorney.
Edna, of similar build, has no prior arrests. She remains in jail.
Elva said the problems began shortly after agents showed up at her sister’s apartment and identified themselves as police.
“She refused to open the door and called me,” Elva said. “I went over there and saw the agents. They said they just wanted to talk to her. They weren’t going to arrest her.”
Agents eventually entered the apartment and told Edna she was being deported.
Edna began to cry and held her son.
“She didn’t want them to put handcuffs on her while she had her child in her arms,” Elva said. “She was just holding her son tight and crying.”
Elva said one of the agents tried to take the boy from his mother, grabbing him by one arm.
“I told the female agent to s top it,” Elva said. “Then the other agent yelled at me to shut up and he pushed me down onto the chair in the living room.”
When agents began to wrestle the child from his mother, Elva said she began taking photos with a cell phone camera.
“The whole time they were yelling ’stupid bitch, shut up.’ No one ever asked me if I was a citizen or here legally,” Edna said.
Elva said the agents grew angry when they saw her taking photographs.
“The male agent asked if I took photos and the female officer said ‘yes’ and came over and began to search me,” she said.
The agent began pulling at Elva’s clothes, ripping her T-shirt, scratching her chest, and knocking her glasses off her face, Elva said.
Edna lay on the floor crying, as her son looked on.
The women were taken to a van. Edna’s son was left behind. Agents refused to let a relative take the boy because he had no identification, Elva said. A second relative arrived a few minutes later and found the boy alone on the floor, she said.
Elva was released one day later.
She keeps the broken cell phone and shattered reading glasses authorities released to her in a plastic bag near her bedside.
Immigration officials declined to comment on the case.
But in an affadavit filed in federal court, agents accuse the Funes sisters of attacking immigration officials.
Tai Chow, a deportation officer, said in the court documents that the two women “became erratic and grasped each other, interlocking their arms,” when agents moved toward them.
“Edna grabbed her son and pulled him toward her. Edna and Elva refused to comply with verbal instructions to separate,” Chow said.
Agents were forced to grab Edna because she “continued to hold her son close to her body when (agents) approached her, the officers were initially unable to place Edna on the ground to place handcuffs on her,” Chow said.
An agent eventually took the boy from his mother, but Edna continued to struggle, requiring three agents to place her on the floor, he said.
Chow makes no mention of the cell phone, only saying Elva “attempted to bite” one agent who tried to remove an object from Elva’s hands.
Civil and immigrant rights lawyers question why agents arrested a U.S. citizen and filed such severe charges.
“We almost never see this kind of charge, unless you are talking about an outrageous assault,” said David Leopold, a Cleveland immigration attorney, who has handled high-profile cases.
“If they arrested her as an alien, then learned she was a U.S citizen, and then charged her with assault, it raises some very serious questions,” he said.
Like Leopold, local civil rights attorneys said Funes’ arrest is alarming.
“While it’s not impossible to imagine a 5-foot-tall, 50-year old woman with no criminal history attacking four ICE officers, it definitely makes you skeptical when you hear the story,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney with the ACLU of Southern California.
He said U.S. citizens and legal citizens are often ensnared in immigration raids.
Indeed, at least five U.S. citizens and legal residents have sued i mmigration officials alleging agents stopped and harrassed them, and had their Georgia homes searched without the individuals’ consent because they were Latino.
But the Funes’ case is also drawing attention because of agents’ decision to separate a mother and child.
Immigration agents drew heavy criticism last year when they arrested a Guatemalan mother while she was nursing her baby during a home search.
The case eventually led Julie Myers, the head of the immigration agency, to order the woman released. Myers then issued a memo instructing agents to exercise discretion when detaining nursing mothers or parents who are the sole caretakers of young children.
“The spirit of the memo is to tell agents to use their discretion in the field, and approach these situations with humanity and treat them with dignity,” said Leopold, the attorney who represented the Guatemalan mother. “It doesn’t sound like they did that in this case.”
Edna’s son is now living with his aunt. Elva surrendered her passport pending a hearing.
“I never thought something like this could happen to me, not in the U.S,” Elva said. “When I was sitting in the jail with my sister and she was crying, I told her to rest because the only thing we have ever done while in this country is work, work very hard.”
