ICE, CBP, and Border Patrol agents carried out a tense operation in the Florida Keys that ended with the detention of an American woman, despite her repeatedly shouting that she was a citizen. The incident, captured on video by a Miami Herald journalist, shows the moment federal agents forcibly remove her from a white Toyota Corolla and force her to the ground before handcuffing her. “I’m a U.S. citizen, please help me! This is unfair. Why are you doing this to me?” the visibly desperate woman can be heard saying as several agents surround the vehicle. Minutes later, after checking the driver’s license that remained inside the car, the officers confirmed that she was indeed a citizen and released her without filing charges. According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the woman refused to roll down her window or identify herself during the traffic stop. A spokesperson also indicated that the car she was driving was registered to an “undocumented immigrant” and that she ignored “repeated legal orders” to cooperate with agents. However, the agency avoided explaining the criteria under which they were stopping vehicles that day. “We cannot go into details about what we are going to look for,” was the only response to questions about the operation. The intervention was part of a larger deployment that, according to authorities, was active between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. in the Rowell's Waterfront Park area, near mile marker 104.5. Drivers traveling through the area reported delays and noted that agents asked them to move forward without stopping when lines grew due to onlookers slowing down. The incident occurs amid a notable increase in immigration enforcement in the Keys, where several raids have been carried out in recent days. This week alone, fourteen “undocumented aliens” were arrested, some with criminal records for domestic violence, assault, illegal possession of weapons, and illegal re-entry into the country, according to CBP.

Even so, federal authorities have not offered a clear explanation as to why a U.S. citizen ended up on the pavement, handcuffed and temporarily detained during an operation that, in principle, was searching for immigrants with arrest warrants or criminal records.

What they do acknowledge is that these deployments have intensified since the tightening of immigration policies under the Trump administration, and that the Key Largo area has recently become an “area of ??interest,” where operations will continue in the coming weeks.