ICE Impersonators Are Harassing Immigrants: Police

Multiple police departments across the U.S. have recently arrested suspects who allegedly impersonated ICE agents and appeared to be using President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies to intimidate immigrants or further their own criminal activities.

Sean Michael-Emmrich Johnson, a 33-year-old South Carolina resident, was charged on Jan. 31 with kidnapping and impersonating a police officer after a viral video shared by Spanish news network Nuestro Estado showed him detaining and taunting a group of Latino men.

“You all got caught!” Johnson can be heard telling the men with a smile. He can then be seen taking the keys out of the ignition of the men’s truck, preventing them from leaving. “Where are you from, Mexico? You from Mexico? You’re going back to Mexico!”

One of the men can be heard speaking Spanish over the phone before Johnson interrupts to say, “Now don’t be speaking that pig-Latin in my fucking country!”

Police arrived to a report of a traffic violation and encountered Johnson, who allegedly told them the men in the landscaping truck he was harassing were Mexican and did not have a valid driver’s license, according to a heavily redacted arrest warrant obtained by HuffPost.

Officers instead issued a warrant for Johnson’s arrest, and he turned himself in shortly afterward.

On Saturday, Johnson’s family said in court he faces mental health challenges and that “he needs help and he needs to continue to get that therapy,” ABC affiliate WCIV reported. He was released on bond, and his public defender reportedly said he was sorry for what he had done.

That same day, Aidan Steigelmann, a 22-year-old student from Temple University in Philadelphia, was arrested and charged with impersonating a public servant after police said that he and another man roamed around campus, identifying themselves as federal agents while wearing shirts that read “Police” on the front and “ICE” on the back.

Steigelmann was placed on interim suspension as the law enforcement investigation continues, the university wrote in a statement.

“It is deeply troubling and disappointing to know behavior like this reportedly occurred on our campus,” the Temple University statement read.

The incidents show the dangerous climate that Latinos are facing in the U.S., Roman Palomares, national president and chair of civil rights group LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, told HuffPost in an email.

“We ask our community to remain calm and not react when confronted by someone trying to provoke them,” Palomares said. “Also, they or someone with them should record the incident and then report it to police. And we ask the authorities to prosecute illegal actions sparked by racial prejudice or bias.”

In North Carolina, Raleigh police arrested Carl Thomas Bennett, 37, who they said broke into a woman’s home and impersonated an ICE agent by displaying “a business card with a badge on it,” according to a magistrate order obtained by HuffPost. He then threatened the woman with deportation if she refused to have sex with him, the document said.

Bennett was charged with nine offenses, including forcible rape, and is set to appear in court on Feb. 17.

Nikki Barin Baena, co-director of the Latino rights organization Siembra NC, told WRAL her group is working to make immigrants aware of their rights in the face of a “perfect storm” of increased federal law enforcement and increased exploitation by people outside law enforcement.

“People wouldn’t be surprised that an ICE agent acted in an inappropriate way because they often do act in inappropriate ways to get information out of people,” Baena told the outlet.

Bennet’s arrest follows another incident in which a Hispanic family in Greensboro, North Carolina, said they were robbed by suspects who falsely identified themselves as ICE agents, FOX affiliate WGHP reported.

Police officials told HuffPost the robbery occurred on Jan. 25 at around 1:48 a.m., when one of the residents heard a noise and opened the front door. That’s when several masked robbers pushed their way inside, police said.

Authorities did not confirm whether the suspects identified themselves as ICE agents to HuffPost, but the victims described what happened to WGHP.

A woman who was in the home told the outlet that one of the suspects grabbed her baby.

“He started pointing the gun, and he said … ‘If you don’t give me the money, I’m going to shoot your baby.’ Pointed a gun at the baby’s head, and then my husband tried to get up to get the baby away from him. He also got hit in the head,” she reportedly said. “The guy that had my baby hit me upside of the head with the gun. I told him, ‘He has the money … You can give me my baby back now.’”

The family declined to be identified by name and told the outlet they are afraid their attackers will return.

ICE did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on the multiple incidents.

Maribel Hernández Rivera, the American Civil Liberties Union’s director of policy and government affairs for border and immigration, told HuffPost that the political climate under the Trump administration has made some people feel empowered to harass immigrants and even break the law to do so.

“We definitely see from this administration that there’s an all-out attack on immigrant communities, right? We have seen policy after policy, or executive order after executive order, going after immigrants,” Rivera said. “And the point of the Trump administration is to create that fear, is to create a state of emergency in immigrant communities.”