A 28-year-old woman set to give birth as early as next week spoke out about being detained by immigration authorities in California, even after she told agents she was a U.S. citizen.
Cary López Alvarado lost her balance as agents "shoved her" during her arrest over the weekend, she tearfully told NBC Los Angeles on Monday from a hospital bed. “That’s when I kind of leaned forward, trying to protect the stomach.”
López Alvarado told Telemundo 52, NBC’s sister station in Los Angeles, "I was afraid that they were going to hurt me."
Once she was back at home Tuesday, she told Noticias Telemundo, “I crouched down and held my belly, because I was scared they would hurt me. ... Three agents were grabbing me and trying to handcuff me."
López Alvarado said she started experiencing sharp pains in her stomach after she was arrested and released Sunday and that she went to the hospital. With just one week left before her due date, her doctors said, they hospitalized López Alvarado for a day to monitor her and her baby, NBC Los Angeles reported.
Masked men wearing Border Patrol uniforms pulled up to a building’s private parking in the city of Hawthorne in marked U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicles Sunday after having followed a white pickup truck with two undocumented workers, one of whom is López Alvarado’s partner, Brian Nájera.
López Alvarado and her cousin Alberto Sandoval, who is also a U.S. citizen, opened the parking gate so Nájera and the other co-worker could o in. López Alvarado and Sandoval, as well as Nájera and the other co-worker, were in the building doing maintenance work.
López Alvarado said she and her cousin believed agents would need to show they had a warrant to be able to enter their workplace.
“They had us all surrounded,” López Alvarado told NBC Los Angeles on Monday.
López Alvarado captured her interactions with immigration enforcement agents on video.
In one video, she tells the agents: "I'm gonna need you guys to leave. This is private property."
As the agents "were trying to forcefully open" the gates, López Alvarado said, she "was blocking the door," and "I told them they were in private property.”
In another video, one of the agents responds: "Excuse me, ma'am. You are interfering with my arrest. I'm doing my job. ... Can you please move away?"
"I'm not moving away," López Alvarado tells the agent.
López Alvarado said agents told her the parking wasn't private property and arrested her alongside her partner, her cousin and her co-worker.
In an email to NBC News on Tuesday night, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that “Cary Lopez was arrested because she obstructed federal law enforcement by blocking access to a car that had two Guatemalan illegal aliens in it."
According to the statement, "during this incident, agents were assaulted, and an additional subject was taken into custody after he pushed an officer. Additionally, rioters began throwing wrenches and batteries at agents. Anyone who actively obstructs or assaults law enforcement, including U.S. citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest.”
The Department of Homeland Security said that "ICE enforcement officers are facing a 413% increase in assaults against them," which McLaughlin said was "disgraceful."
The arrests took place the same weekend immigration authorities conducted a series of raids in Southern California, arresting dozens of people and triggering five straight days of protests in Los Angeles.
Witnesses recorded the moment immigration authorities handcuffed López Alvarado. They shout at the agents "let her go" and "she's pregnant."
After Nájera was arrested and López Alvarado was detained, they were put in separate cars, she told Noticias Telemundo. She said immigration agents told her, "Calm down, calm down, you’re pregnant. 'I said, how can I calm down?'” López Alvarado recounted through tears. She added she still hasn't heard from Nájera following his arrest.
She said agents told her she was taken into custody for trying to obstruct their operation.
“I wasn’t resisting or anything,” she said. “I can’t fight back; I’m pregnant.”
During the arrest, López Alvarado said, she told agents she was due on June 17. The agents responded, “'OK, your baby is going to be born here, but you're from Mexico, right?' And I told them no,” she said.
"I was born here," López Alvarado told Telemundo 52 in Spanish. "I was born in Los Angeles; I was born in Hollywood Hospital.”
López Alvarado was released shortly after the arrest and taken to her home. She was told that agents would contact her later about the obstruction allegations. She said no one gave her any documents or citations in connection with the arrest.
Her cousin, Sandoval, was not released because he faces assault charges, his mother, María Alvarado, told Telemundo 52. "My son didn't attack. He was attacked. There are videos. There's evidence," she said in Spanish.
