E-Paper
Indian-origin doctor says her mother was harassed by masked ICE agents: ‘Because she has an accent…’
Nisha Patel, a doctor, shared on X that her mother, a US citizen, was harassed by ICE agents at a Texas mall.
An Indian-origin doctor in the United States has said that her elderly mother was stopped and harassed by federal immigration authorities while shopping at a mall. Nisha Patel, a doctor based in San Francisco, shared an X post about the incident where she claimed that ICE agents started demanding to know where her mother is “from” — despite the fact that she is a US citizen.
Her post comes at a time when the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is aggressively cracking down on illegal immigrants. The ICE crackdown has led to at least two fatal shootings of American citizens and sparked a wave of protests across the country.
What happened with Patel’s mother?
According to Nisha Patel, her mother was shopping at an outlet mall in Texas when masked ICE agents approached and confronted her.
Assuming that she spoke Spanish, the agents started talking to her in the language. When she responded saying she did not speak Spanish, they began to list countries while asking her where she is “from”.
“Because she has an accent, they assumed she spoke Spanish and started talking to her in Spanish. When she said she doesn’t speak Spanish, they began demanding where she was “from,” rapidly listing countries without even giving her a chance to respond,” Patel recounted.
The woman’s response
Patel’s mother told the ICE agents that she has been in the United States longer than they have been alive. Even so, she was only allowed to leave once she showed the agents a photograph of her US passport, proving that she is a citizen of the country.
“My mom told them she’s been in this country longer than some of them have been alive. She was only allowed to leave after showing a photo of her U.S. passport on her phone,” Patel said in her X post.
She ended her post with an indictment of the incident and what is happening in the US at large. “She is a U.S. citizen. She has lived in this country for 47 years. If you think this is just about “sending criminals back,” you are dead wrong,” said the doctor.
(Also read: Indian restaurant in Minneapolis shuts down ‘to protect team’ amid ICE crackdown)
