Attorneys representing a 15-year-old LA Unified student, who was wrongfully detained by federal agents at gunpoint outside of Arleta High School in early August, filed a claim against the federal government on Tuesday that seeks $1 million in damages for the alleged “unconstitutional racial profiling” of the Latino U.S. citizen with special needs.
“They are violating the rights of not only people, Latinos in Los Angeles and California, but also students who need protection, students who are vulnerable, students that are really trying to get an education,” said Christian Contreras, one of the attorneys representing the teen.
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On the morning of Monday, Aug. 11, Andreina Mejia drove her two kids to Arleta High School for her daughter’s orientation. Her son attends a different high school. She and her son, who court documents refer to as B.G., waited in the vehicle that was parked along the side of the school while she spoke to a friend over the phone.
“All I remember was I seen this white truck approaching my car. … I was still on the phone and I just seen all these men coming out of that truck pointing their guns at my son and myself,” Mejia said at a Tuesday news conference in front of LAUSD’s downtown LA headquarters.
The mother saw the fear in her son’s face.
“He didn’t know what was going on. So, I just told him, ‘Don’t make any movement, don’t move, just follow instructions,’” she said. The masked federal agents opened the car doors and pulled them both out. Agents detained the boy and denied the mother’s pleas to go with her son.
“My friend on the phone said that she heard when my son was like, ‘Oh, my name is so-and-so. I’m 15 years old, I’m in special classes and I’m a U.S. citizen,” Mejia recalled. She asked one of the agents next to her to make sure the other agents didn’t hurt her son. Shortly after, the handcuffs were taken off of her son. He came crying towards her.
Mejia said once they were reunited, one of the agents told her son “‘Oh, we just confused you with somebody else, but look at the bright side, like, you’re going to have an exciting story to tell your friends when you go back to school.’ In my head I was trying to process it and I was like ‘There’s nothing exciting about getting guns pointed at you, especially when you’re a 15-year-old, you don’t know what’s going on, you’re scared and there’s nothing exciting about that.’”
The roughly seven-minute detainment left lasting impacts on Mejia’s son, who told his mother that he suffers from nightmares. “Like sometimes I’m driving and he breaks down out of nowhere. So, at that point I just have to pull to the side and just like console him and tell him everything’s going to be okay. As the mother, what am I supposed to tell him?” Mejia said.
Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol are accused of being involved in the wrongful detainment, according to the claim filed against the government.
The Department of Homeland Security has denied allegations of racial profiling.
“Allegations that Border Patrol targeted Arleta High School are FALSE. Agents were conducting a targeted operation on criminal illegal alien Cristian Alexander Vasquez-Alvarenga — a Salvadoran national and suspected MS-13 pledge with prior criminal convictions in the broader vicinity of Arleta. … What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity,” DHS said.
The agency also claimed Mejia assisted with the Border Patrol’s arrest of Vasquez-Alvarenga, that he and her son B.G. are often mistaken for each other, and that they’re cousins.
“That is false. This family is a Mexican-American family. They have no Salvadoran relatives as part of their immediate family,” said attorney Michael Carrillo.
“There’s no resemblance, except for the brown color,” added attorney Luis Carrillo.
The attorneys expects the federal government to deny their claim but will “move forward with our request for justice,” said Michael Carrillo.
Michael Carrillo and Luis Carrillo, along with Contreras, represent B.G.