'This family is all of us': Federal lawmaker criticizes Oklahoma ICE raid, Homeland Security responds

Yahoo

02-05-2025

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — A federal lawmaker criticized a recent ICE raid on an innocent family's home in Oklahoma City during a U.S. House Judiciary Committee meeting following News 4's coverage of the incident.
On Wednesday, U.S. Representative Becca Balint (D-VT) addressed the April 24 raid where federal immigration agents broke down the door of a family's home in northwest OKC, ordered a mother and her three daughters to go outside at gunpoint, and seized all of their electronics as well as their life savings in cash.
RELATED: Homeland Security admits Oklahoma raid targeted wrong people
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security later told News 4 that they were searching for the previous residents of the home, and the mother and her three daughters, who are all U.S. citizens and had moved to Oklahoma City from Maryland two weeks prior to the incident, were not suspects in the operation.
News 4 spoke with the mother, referred to as Marissa to protect her identity, who says she and her daughters are traumatized and struggling to deal with the aftermath.
Balint played a short clip from News 4's initial report for her colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, and called the incident a 'colossal mistake.'
'This is what we have created here. This is Trump's America,' Balint said. 'These were citizens who were treated like this. This is what we want you to open your eyes to. If it can happen, as we've said, time and time again, if it can happen to folks with green cards, it can happen to citizens and in Oklahoma City we see a perfect example of that. This is what we're talking about. It's not other people. It's us. It's our neighbors. It's our friends. It's people who just moved from Maryland to Oklahoma for a better life and have their house destroyed and they can't get answers. If we watch the rest of the news clip there, they're asking ICE 'who's responsible for this?' And then they're sending them to another agency, and they're sending them to another agency and nobody is accountable for what happened to them.'
'We're citizens!': Oklahoma City family traumatized after ICE raids home, but they weren't suspects
'What happened to that family, once again, of American citizens in Oklahoma City should scare the hell out of all of us, and we should not be using this committee to find more money to pump into ICE so that these things can happen,' Balint continued. 'This family is all of us.'
The full recording of Balint's speech can be viewed here.
The House Judiciary Democrats posted a clip of Balint's speech on social media, saying 'Armed federal agents stormed a home in Oklahoma where U.S. citizens lived, including three children, and terrorized a family because ICE had the wrong address. This is Trump's America: lawless raids, shredded warrants, and zero accountability. Democrats are fighting to stop taxpayer dollars from funding this assault on due process.'
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security then shared the House Judiciary Democrats' post on Thursday with the following caption.
Wrong.
The April 24 Oklahoma ICE operation was a lawful, court-authorized action explicitly targeting a property, that was a hub for human smuggling, not specific individuals, as falsely suggested by media reports.
The day prior to the search warrant issuance and the day of the search warrant, HSI agents conducted surveillance, and confirmed via utility records that a member of the Lima Lopez Transnational Criminal Organization was still paying utilities at the residence. The warrant, issued by a Federal Judge was based on an 84-page affidavit detailing probable cause that the address served as a 'stash house' for human smuggling, authorizing the seizure of evidence such as electronic devices and documents, regardless of who was present.
The warrant targeted the property itself, not specific individuals, and its execution was not contingent on the presence of any person. HSI, with Oklahoma state police support, executed the warrant with precision, seizing electronic devices as authorized.
This court-authorized search was a critical strike against a dangerous human smuggling network in furtherance of our mission to protect American communities from the chaos unleashed by the Biden administration's open-border policies. This is an ongoing investigation, and we have not ruled out current occupants involvement in the smuggling ring.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Homeland Security's new statement also indicated that they still haven't ruled out 'Marissa' and her daughters as being involved in the smuggling ring.
However, just this morning, the agency's top spokesperson said everyone who was the target of the operation had moved out of the home weeks before. She referred to this incident as unfortunate and not ideal.
Following Homeland Security's mention of Oklahoma state police support, News 4 reached out to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol on Thursday to ask about their involvement in the raid. OHP confirmed they were at the raid, but declined to release a statement.
On Wednesday afternoon, News 4 reached out to U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice, U.S. Senator James Lankford, and U.S Senator Markwayne Mullin with several questions about the raid.
So far, Lankford's office is the only one of Oklahoma's federal delegation that has responded as of Thursday afternoon, saying, 'The Senator is following the situation, and we are working to get an accounting of what happened.'
KFOR's reporting did not question the legitimacy or legality of the federal operation. Our reporting, then and now, is focused on the treatment that 'Marissa' and her daughters received on the night of the raid.
News 4 will continue to bring you the latest updates as this story develops.
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