SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico–What was supposed to be a peaceful return home from a lover’s getaway in Puerto Rico turned into a humiliating encounter with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for Iliana Pacheco, a U.S. citizen and registered nurse from New Jersey.
In a viral Facebook post, Pacheco recounted being asked about her citizenship status by an ICE agent after passing a TSA checkpoint with her boyfriend inside the Luis Munoz Marin International Airport just after Valentine’s Day.
“He asked to see my ID, which I was confused because I just had my photo scanned & I.D. verified,” Pacheco wrote. “He asked me ‘what’s your status in the U.S.’ I said ‘citizen, why?’ He said ‘I need to verify that. Give me your passport.'”
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s website, since 2021 the San Juan airport has implemented “facial biometrics to automate the manual document checks that are already required for departure from airports and seaports in the United States.”
The Black Wall Street Times reached out to I.C.E.’s media office to ask if it was aware of this incident and whether the agency trains its agents to avoid racially profiling people.
“We must refer you to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for assistance with this query,” a media representative responded.
CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. citizen speaks out against “racist” ICE encounter
Ultimately, Pacheco claims the I.C.E. agents told her she “fit the description” of someone who’s undocumented. She also claims the agents advised her to carry her passport, even though Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and doesn’t require passports for Americans traveling to and from the Island.
“Just being Hispanic in general, being a minority in this country, it’s like it’s bound to happen,” Pacheco told the Black Wall Street Times in an interview. “Something’s always bound to happen where racism is a thing. I just would have never thought that I.C.E. would sit there and tell me in my face,” she said.
The U.S.-born nurse, whose mother is Mexican, claims I.C.E. agents questioned her in a “nasty” manner before realizing she was an American citizen.
“It was just disgusting the way these people approached me. It was frustrating just knowing the fact that I’m sitting here just trying to go back home, and they’re telling me, ‘you look like you’re undocumented.’ Like, what kind of person really says that,” Pacheco said.
ICE raids sweep up U.S. citizens, legal residents
The incident is just the latest in reported cases of I.C.E. targeting and detaining legal immigrants or U.S. citizens since authoritarian billionaire Donald Trump took office for his second presidential term in January.
In an extraordinary case of targeting First Amendment rights, Trump is embroiled in a legal battle with attorneys for Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a Green Card-holding legal resident who led pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
“My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention,” Khalil wrote in a note titled, Letter from a Palestinian Political Prisoner in Louisiana.
He currently’s being detained at an I.C.E. facility in Louisiana as Trump tries to deport him out of the country.
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration continues to question the authority of judges ruling against his plans to deport immigrants he alleges are criminals and gang-members to the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador without due process.
“If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.
“You fit the description”
For U.S. citizens like Pacheco who get swept up in ICE raids and immigration checks, it feels like a betrayal from her own country. She said she didn’t see any other people of Color in line the morning of her detainment.
After showing one agent her valid I.D., she said he refused to answer why he profiled her. So, she walked up to another I.C.E. agent demanding answers.
“Can you please answer my question, why are we being detained? She said because ‘you fit the description.’ I’m like, ‘what description?’ She said, ‘you fit the description of someone who’s undocumented,”’ Pacheco recounted.
“Like is this really how like most Hispanics or just any immigrant in general is feeling in this country?”
Knowing your rights
Since her Facebook post went viral, Pacheco said she’s had many people reach out questioning her story and asking about their rights.
“I made that status on Facebook to bring awareness,” she said.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union:
- You do not have to discuss your immigration or citizenship status with police, immigration agents, or other officials. Anything you tell an officer can later be used against you in immigration court.
- If you are not a U.S. citizen and an ICE agent requests your immigration papers, you must show them if you have them with you.
- If an immigration agent asks if they can search you, you have the right to say no. Agents do not have the right to search you or your belongings without your consent or probable cause.
- If you’re over 18, carry your papers with you at all times. If you don’t have them, tell the officer that you want to remain silent, or that you want to consult a lawyer before answering any questions.
Battle for the soul of the country
Trump and members of his administration continue to push elements of the Great Replacement Theory, a white supremacist conspiracy that claims Democrats are flooding the country with immigrants to decrease the number and political power of White conservatives.
“They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in, practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote, and that’s why they’re allowing them into our country,” Trump said during the presidential debate in September 2024.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s far-right policy advisor and the man behind the family separation policy, put his views more bluntly. “America is for Americans and Americans only,” he said during a rally at Madison Square Garden in October that was filled with neo-Nazi ideology.
“I save lives for a living”
Meanwhile, Pacheco wants people to remain aware of their rights and their dignity as ICE continues to sweep up citizens, including Indigenous peoples, in its effort to ramp up deportations.
“The Puerto Rican people are beyond amazing, delightful, kind. Everyone was so nice to me. I just really wasn’t expecting that, given the fact that growing up, my mom was always profiled for the way she looked and for her not speaking English,” Pacheco told BWSTimes.
The language barrier and racism her mother experienced is what drove Pacheco to become a nurse.
“I have a clean slate. I’ve done no crime. I save lives for a living,” she said. “So, just given the fact that this man approached me so nasty and said, ‘let me see your identification. You fit the description,’ and what the other lady said; we don’t have to give them anything unless they have a warrant, which they 100% didn’t.”
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