She’s unnamed, but described in twits as being a wife, mother and born and raised “near Bailey’s Crossroads in Northern Virginia.” That didn’t stop an unnamed and masked ICE agent from pointing his weapon at her. The official DHS explanation was routine.

Under most circumstances, there would be no way to challenge this official account, even though so many of the DHS claims about ICE interactions have been proven shockingly false. But this time, the driver had a dashcam.

 

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After her car was blocked by ICE agents, she was approached by an agent with gun drawn and pointed, who claimed she “almost ran them over.” The dashcam video proves that to be a lie.

Notably, you can see an agent taking a picture of her license plate, whether to obtain her identity or place her in a databank of ICE enemies. As the DHS spokesperson notes, there is a threat that she may still be prosecuted for not loving ICE enough.

One of the worst aspects of ICE agents’ actions is the dangerous, illegal and unjustified use, or threatened use, of force. By pointing a gun at the women, even though there was no cause whatsoever to justify either the drawing or pointing of a weapon at a person who presented no threat of harm to anyone, the agent significantly increased the possibility that he would shoot, perhaps kill, the woman. You don’t point a gun unless you have justification to use it.

Much as the MAGA faithful are thrilled by the actions of ICE agents in rounding up random people who appear to be aliens, whether because of appearance, accent or name, and are more than willing to accept, if not applaud, the illegal use of force as necessary to catch and remove the illegals, even if it means sweeping up citizens in the process, or the needless and illegal beating or killing of a few because stercus accidit, this remains flagrantly unlawful conduct being routinely perpetrated by agents of the government.

And the kneejerk DHS response is to shamelessly lie about it to justify the agents’ conduct, facts and video be damned.

Had this woman not had a dashcam that would prove she neither tried to run the agents over, nor engaged in any other activity which “weaponized her vehicle against them,” the likelihood that she would have suffered either arrest or violence by the agents would have increased exponentially.

There is no requirement in the law that citizens drive around with dashcams in their cars, but had she not had the dashcam, not had the proof that the agent was lying, the outcome of this interaction might have been substantially worse for her than just a gun pointed at her head that could have gone off at any moment. And yet, DHS asks us to believe their routine lies to justify such action rather than believe are eyes because this time, fortunately, there was video.