About 20 armed federal agents burst through the door of an Oklahoma home in the middle of the night when conducting a search warrant for suspects who no longer lived there.
Marisa, a US citizen living at the rented property with her three daughters, said the incident has left her family "traumatized."
According to local news station KFOR, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided the home last week and confiscated the family's belongings.
Highlights
- A mother and her three daughters were woken up at gunpoint by ICE agents during a raid on their home.
- The agents were searching for eight Guatemalan criminals who had previously lived at the residence.
- The woman claims that the federal agents confiscated her life savings, phone, and other belongings.
Image credits: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
The mother said the family woke up to find "guns pointed in [their] faces" and initially thought they were being robbed or kidnapped.
"I keep asking them, 'Who are you? What are you doing here? What's happening?'" described the woman, referred to by the pseudonym Marisa by KFOR.
"And they said, 'We have a warrant for the house, a search warrant.'"
Marissa insisted that her family was innocent and rightfully living in the country. "We're citizens. That's what I kept saying. We're citizens."
Image credits: KFOR Oklahoma's News
However, she said the agents responded by being "very dismissive, very rough, very careless."
Marisa and her daughters had recently moved to the home in Oklahoma City from Maryland, hoping to save money and enjoy a slower pace of life. Her husband was set to join them that weekend.
The agents reportedly took their phones, laptops, and life savings as "evidence."
"I have to feed my children. I'm going to need gas money. I need to be able to get around. How do you just leave me like this? Like an abandoned dog."
A mother and her three daughters woke up in the middle of the night at gunpoint
Image credits: KFOR Oklahoma's News
She continued: "I kept pleading. I kept telling them we weren't criminals. They were treating us like criminals. We were here by ourselves. We didn't do anything."
The men, who reportedly identified themselves as federal agents with the US Marshals Service, the FBI, and ICE, ordered Marisa and her daughters to step outside in the rain.
Image credits: KFOR Oklahoma's News
Marisa said the agents wanted her to change "in front of all of them, in between all of them."
"My husband has not even seen my daughter in her undergarments — her own dad, because it's respectful. You have her out there, a minor, in her underwear."
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents took their phones, laptops, and life savings as "evidence"
Image credits: KFOR Oklahoma's News
A senior officer with the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that ICE executed "a court-authorized search warrant for a large-scale human smuggling investigation" and that "the previous residents were the intended targets."
The operation involved eight Guatemalan nationals who were indicted in a federal case in the Northern District of Oklahoma.
The US Marshal Service said they were "aware of the operation before it happened" but denied its involvement in the incident, and the FBI referred to the Department of Homeland Security.
Marisa claimed that one of the agents admitted to being "a little rough" during the search warrant.
"It was so denigrating that you do all of this to a family, to women, your fellow citizens. And it was a little rough? You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life.
"We're going to have to go get help or get over this somehow."
As per KFOR, the agents told the mother she would have to wait days or even months to get her savings and electronic devices back.
A senior officer for the Department of Homeland Security admitted that the "previous residents were the intended targets"
Image credits: KFOR Oklahoma's News
Image credits: KFOR Oklahoma's News
Following the incident, one of Marissa's friends created a GoFundMe page to help the family.
The page, titled Help a Family Rebuild After Unjust Raid, has raised $10,115 USD of its $12k goal at the time of writing.
"Although they are US Citizens, have not committed any crimes nor are affiliated with the people on the search warrant, they were ambushed in their sleep by federal agents, taken outside under the rain in their undergarments to be interviewed and questioned outside of their home," the description reads.
The family now finds itself in "financial difficulties" and is trying to "find normalcy" in their life again after the raid.
The mother accused the agents of being "rough" with her family and treating them like "criminals" after she insisted they were US citizens
Image credits: KFOR Oklahoma's News
Image credits: Federal Bureau of Investigation
The mother emphasized that the situation could have ended much worse if she had been armed.
"You're breaking in. What am I supposed to think? My initial thought was we were being robbed—that my daughters, being females, were being kidnapped," she told the local news station.
A GoFundMe page has been created to help the family after the raid
Image credits: GoFundMe
Marisa reiterated the violent treatment that she and her daughters endured during the raid and urged federal agents to show more empathy.
"You have guns pointed in our faces. Can you just reprogram yourself and see us as humans, as women? A little bit of mercy. Care a little bit about your fellow human, about your fellow citizen, fellow resident.
"What makes you so much more worthy of your peace? What makes you so much more worthy of protecting your children? What makes you so much more worthy of your citizenship? What makes you more worthy of safety? Of being given the right that they took from me to protect my daughters?
"We bleed too. We work. We bleed just like anybody else bleeds. We're scared. You could see our faces that we were terrified."
People called for the federal agency to compensate the family for the trauma it has caused
