“From the beginning, mass deportation was never about public safety. It was always about targeting anyone and everyone this administration deems undesirable, for whatever reason”
In the span of just one week, three U.S. citizens were targeted and falsely accused by mass deportation agents, including one Virginia woman who caught on video the terrifying moment when an unhinged ICE agent pointed his gun at her face and responded “I don’t care” when she told them she’s an American.
LATINA U.S. CITIZEN THREATENED WITH GUN BY ICE AGENT: ‘IT REALLY FELT LIKE A RENEE GOOD SITUATION’
Carolina Molina, a licensed mental health counselor who assists immigration lawyers with their cases, was visiting attorneys in Fairfax County, Virginia on Aug. 10 when she witnessed mass deportation agents in unmarked vehicles abducting two Latino men. When Molina voiced her displeasure from inside her car, she soon found herself swarmed by a team of agents, including a masked officer who pointed his weapon in her face and claimed that she “almost ran us over.”
This bald-faced lie – a deliberate phrase repeatedly employed by federal immigration agents throughout the Trump administration – was debunked by Molina’s dashcam footage, which showed “that she never attempted to run over any ICE agents with her car,” as The Daily Beast reported. “Instead, the immigration agents were seemingly upset that Molina—who works with attorneys to offer counseling services in immigration cases—had called them a ‘hoe’ and a ‘f—ing b—h’ while they were detaining two people.”
Video of an ICE agent pulling a gun on a wife and mother, who is a US citizen born and raised in the area, near Bailey's Crossroads in Northern Virginia yesterday.Chillingly, they claimed she “almost ran them over” until she told them she had video proving that was a lie.
— Aaron Fritschner (@fritschner.bsky.social) 2026-08-11T20:18:21.670Z
“After Molina explained to the ICE agents that she had dashcam footage of the moments leading up to one of them pointing a gun at her, they soon departed without arresting or detaining her,” the report continued. While it’s very likely that Molina’s preparedness helped save her from possible unjust detention and serious harm, drivers shouldn’t be expected to be prepared with two forms of video in order to save their lives. What we’re witnessing is a dysfunctional, chaotic and oftentimes violent immigration enforcement system.
Molina said she later realized just how dangerous the encounter had been. “I don’t think I comprehended it in that moment, but looking back on it, it really felt like a Renée Good situation,” she said.
‘THEY TAKE INNOCENT PEOPLE,’ SAYS TEEN SISTER OF DETAINED U.S. CITIZEN
Just days earlier, mass deportation agents similarly dismissed a second Virginia woman when she tried to tell them she was an American citizen, WAVY reports.
18-year-old U.S. citizen Brittany Ramirez Corona had rushed to the scene of her husband’s Norfolk, Virginia abduction by ICE but found only his vehicle when she got there. When she tried to retrieve his car, she was handcuffed in full view of her four-year-old sister. Ramirez Corona said that when she tried to show agents her ID, they accused her of faking her documentation – another claim that has been repeatedly parroted at non-white Americans during this administration.
“I was just like, every time I kept saying I’m a U.S. citizen,” she said. “How is this fake?”
ICE agents continued to expose children to a potentially traumatic event after Ramirez Corona’s 15-year-old sister, Julie, arrived at the scene to pick up the four-year-old as well as present Brittany’s birth certificate, which showed her birthplace as Virginia. But instead of listening to Julie, agents put her and her little sister in a vehicle and dumped them at a grocery store. Julie then had to make her way to a federal building to again present the document but had trouble getting inside because she’s a minor and only had a school ID.
When she was finally able to get inside, “agents did not immediately accept the birth certificate as proof of Brittany Ramirez Corona’s citizenship,” the report said. “They take innocent people,” Julie said. “They’re taking them to these facilities. God knows where.”
IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: ‘THERE IS NO PROBABLE CAUSE HERE’
In Georgia, U.S. citizen John Phillips was trying to board his flight at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport when ICE accused him of being someone else, WSBTV reports.
“They cuff me and start asking me, ‘What’s your name? What’s your birthday?’” said Phillips, who was physically restrained and pinned to the wall of the jet bridge by ICE agents dressed in military-style gear. Only after he was handcuffed did they actually bother to compare the photo of the man they were looking for to the photo on his ID. “He looks nothing like me, other than that he’s a white guy and I’m a white guy,” he said.
His arrest also raises questions about how much airlines are colluding with mass deportation agencies in order to unjustly target travelers at airports, which have become a new breeding ground for arrests in order to avoid the kind of public pushback seen in areas like Minnesota. Phillips told WSBTV that as he was initially attempting to board his flight, a Delta agent “told him the airline was working to upgrade his seat. He just needed to board last.” He was detained shortly after.
“There is no probable cause here. A matching name and birth date is not probable cause,” immigration attorney Charles Kuck told WSBTV. “I just am flabbergasted that all of the security that we have at the airport,” Phillips said, “that they don’t know that I am the John Phillips that lives in Georgia and is not an English guy.”
RACIST SLURS, IGNORING WHITE BYSTANDERS: REPORT SHEDS LIGHT ON UGLY KAVANAUGH STOPS
The harassment of two Latina U.S. citizens comes as The New York Times reports on the civil rights nightmare unleashed by U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who authored the disgraceful opinion giving the green light to what are now called “Kavanaugh stops.” “Body-camera video and other court evidence capture federal agents using slurs and targeting Latinos while bypassing white bystanders during immigration sweeps in Chicago and Los Angeles,” The NY Times reported.
In one court declaration, U.S. citizen Angel Santiago Tafolla “said that agents chased him — a dark-skinned Latino man — while ignoring his light-skinned co-workers at the Orange County carwash. One agent discharged a Taser, arcing electricity in front of Mr. Tafolla, whose clothes were wet from his work. He was handcuffed and loaded into a van, according to the document,” the report said.
“I kept saying ‘I’m American,’ but they just kept telling me I was Latino and my documents were false and to stop talking,” Santiago Tafolla said.
Court documents examined by The NY Times further revealed federal immigration enforcement agents paid with our tax dollars using slurs against Latinos as a matter of routine. “Tonk” is a “derogatory term typically used to refer to Mexican immigrants and intended to echo the sound of agents’ flashlights striking their heads” while “wet” is “shorthand for the slur wetback,” the report said. Other messages reported by HuffPost also show Border Patrol agents describing individuals as ‘an influx of rats’ from ‘whatamala, el salvado and hondodas.’”
Not even mass deportation agents themselves have been spared from their coworkers’ racist taunts. “In another text chain, Border Patrol personnel mocked a co-worker for ‘marrying a tonk’ because ‘he cant find a legal chick here WOW,’” HuffPost continued.
IT WAS ALWAYS ABOUT OTHERING
“From the beginning, mass deportation was never about public safety. It was always about targeting anyone and everyone this administration deems undesirable, for whatever reason,” said Joanna Kuebler, Chief of Programs at America’s Voice. “Stephen Miller and Donald Trump have total disdain for our immigrant community, our civil liberties, and the US constitution. They prefer the monstrosity they have created: an out-of-control, trigger-happy ICE agency to do their bidding.”
“This kind of chaos and recklessness has left death and destruction in its wake,” she continued. “We saw it with Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastián last month, and if it continues, we will see it again. Congress and DHS owe the American people real accountability before this administration’s recklessness costs someone else their life.”
