A mother and her 15-year-old special needs son are suing ICE agents, claiming they were falsely and illegally detained at gunpoint outside a San Fernando Valley High School.
Andreina Mejia said that on Aug. 11, she and her son, named BG, were sitting in their car outside the school when they were confronted at gunpoint by ICE agents.
Christian Contreras, one of the attorneys representing Mejia, told reporters they were detained “with guns drawn.”
“They were detained in a very aggressive manner, and they were detained wrongfully,” Contreras said. “Imagine a 15-year-old with special needs being subjected to firearms on his way to school.”
Meija said it only de-escalated when both of them told the agents that they were U.S. citizens.
“I just told the person that was with me, ‘Can you please make sure they don't hurt my son?’” Mejia recalled. “They're like, ‘Oh right now we'll take care of that.’ So after that I saw that they took the handcuffs off of my son. He came crying towards me. He hugged me.”
She then said one of the agents made a comment she didn’t like.
“He was telling my son, ‘Oh we just confused you with somebody else, but look at the bright side. You're gonna have an exciting story to tell your friends when you go back to school,’” she said. “In my head I was trying to process it, and I was like, ‘there's nothing exciting about getting guns pointed at you,’ especially when you're a 15-year-old. You don't know what's going on. You're scared.”
Attorneys have filed a claim for a million dollars in damages, saying ICE Agents committed battery, false arrest and imprisonment, and civil rights violations. They are also demanding the White House issue executive orders preventing actions by ICE agents near schools.
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Attorney Michael Carrillo said the Department of Homeland Security responded, seeking additional information.
“We have no information at this time as to whether they have settled or attempted to settle other cases,” he said.
The lawyers also called on the Los Angeles Unified School District to release security video from that day in hopes that it would support their case.
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