Pregnant US citizen detained by Border Patrol agents: ‘We didn't do anything wrong'
Cary López Alvarado told Nexstar's KTLA that she 'tried to remain strong' during the scary ordeal, which took place outside a building where her boyfriend and cousin were doing maintenance work on June 8. She was nine months pregnant at the time.
Video taken by López depicts her struggling with a masked agent wearing a Border Patrol uniform asking to see her identification as she was protecting a truck carrying her boyfriend Brayan Nájera and cousin Alberto Sandoval — the latter of whom is also a U.S. citizen.
All three of them were eventually detained. Further footage posted on social media shows agents detaining López after they had pinned her truck between a wall.
'They had my boyfriend on the ground already, and they had tackled my cousin down … that's when I was inside the car just banging on the door,' López said. '[I was asking] 'What are you doing? Why are you guys treating us like this? We didn't do anything wrong.''
According to a statement from a Department of Homeland Security representative, López was arrested because she was obstructing agents from accessing a car containing 'two Guatemalan illegal aliens' inside.
'During this incident, agents were assaulted, and an additional subject was taken into custody for pushing an officer,' the statement read.
The then-soon-to-be-mother was taken to a processing facility in San Pedro, where, according to her, the agents automatically assumed she was undocumented.
'[They said] 'But you're from Mexico, right?' And I'm like 'No, I'm from here,'' López said. '[They asked] … 'Where's here?' and I'm like, 'Here, the U.S., Los Angeles.'
'They put us in chains, so I had a chain from my hands under my belly that went all the way to my legs,' she added. 'Every now and then, I would fix my hands because I felt like I would be putting too much pressure because the chain went under my belly.'
López was released after complaining of stomach pain and went straight to a hospital where she started having contractions, which she believes were caused by the stress of what she had gone through.
Four days after the incident, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl, but the stress isn't over yet, as the baby's father, Nájera, is said to be detained at a facility in Texas despite López saying he has a spotless record.
'He doesn't have any criminal record or anything,' she said. 'They took him while he was working, and that hurts because he didn't do anything wrong. He was just working and taking care of his family. Why are you treating other people this way when they aren't criminals?'
'The color doesn't matter, the race doesn't matter … at the end of the day, we are all human,' she continued through tears.
López's legal team told KTLA that she has not been charged with any crime. In the meantime, she will remain at home with her new baby girl.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help López hire an immigration attorney for her boyfriend and to alleviate costs associated with childcare in his absence.
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