Shot by Border Patrol, Then Called a "Domestic Terrorist"

[Nevilledog]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-immigration/shot-by-border-patrol-then-called-a-domestic-terrorist

No paywall link
https://archive.li/JPp8z

Like other young women she knew who lived on the South Side of Chicago, Marimar Martinez carried a handgun at the bottom of her purse. The gun, a Smith & Wesson pistol for which she had a concealed-carry license, was usually strapped into a neon-pink harness. “It’s a girl gun,” she told me recently. Martinez is thirty-one and works as a teaching assistant at a Montessori school. She thought of herself as a trusting person who’d help “literally anybody,” even strangers. But in 2020, after her sister was the victim of an attempted carjacking, she decided that a gun would be a good idea. The man at the gun shop looked at Martinez, a small woman with round eyes and rosy cheeks, and recommended the pistol, which fit nicely in her hands. She liked to take the gun with her on runs in the forest preserve, where the trails could be lonely. She had never fired the gun outside of a shooting range. But she liked knowing that it was there at the bottom of her bag, for her protection.

That’s where the gun was on Saturday, October 4, 2025. Martinez woke up to a warm, sunlit morning. She filled a wading pool in the yard for her two dogs, Pancho and Gordo, then sorted through old clothes and shoes to donate to a nearby church. She loaded them in the back of her Nissan Rogue and put her purse on the seat beside her. She was almost at the church when she noticed a silver Chevy Tahoe in the road ahead of her. “I was just, like, Something’s not right,” she said. “I know it’s them.”

President Donald Trump had recently begun deploying immigration officers to cities across the country. Four weeks earlier, agents had arrived in Chicago with military fatigues, face masks, armored vehicles, and rifles. Helicopters and drones whirred overhead. The Department of Homeland Security declared this Operation Midway Blitz. It was among the first of several campaigns targeting, the government said, criminals living in the country illegally—though, according to available data, most of the people arrested had no criminal history. Soon, protesters began following agents, recording them, and, at points, attempted to block the entrance of an ice facility. Agents responded with force, using tear gas and rubber bullets.

Martinez, a U.S. citizen who came from a family of Mexican immigrants, had not attended the protests in Chicago. But she had been following ice’s activity in the city, mostly through dedicated Facebook pages. She knew that agents took measures to disguise their vehicles. So when she saw the Tahoe, which had tinted back windows, a Kentucky license plate, and a light-up Uber decal on the front windshield, she decided to follow it. “La migra! La migra!” she shouted out her window, using slang for ice. She honked her horn repeatedly. At one point, she began to record a Facebook live stream in which you can hear her yelling, her manicured almond nails wrapped around the steering wheel.

*snip*

[MustLoveBeagles]

1. K&R

[AZJonnie]

2. Long but excellent piece, deserves to be read by every thinking, caring person

This criminal regime, and these asshole ICE agents are fucked up.

Seriously.

I so hope she wins her civil suit and DHS has to pay her $10M, at least, with a sizeable amount assigned for reputational damage. And are ORDERED to correct the public record with a formal press conference admitting their lies and screwups. For ALL of them including Pretti and Good.