Days after federal immigration agents detained Cary Lopez Alvarado, a 23-year-old Los Angeles native and U.S. citizen, she gave birth to a baby girl.
Lopez Alvarado and her now 3-month-old child are among some Americans who have been caught in the middle of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and forced to prove their citizenship to gain their release from detention.
“And they told me, OK, your baby is gonna be born here, but you’re from Mexico, right?” Alvarado recounted of the June arrest to CBS News. “And I told them like, ‘No, I was born here and I speak English.'”
Alvarado says she was handcuffed and detained for over eight hours with a chain around her belly. Once she was released, Alvarado says she went straight to the hospital with cuts and bruises. She was also already in labor.
“At the hospital, they had told me that I was already having contractions every two minutes,” she said.
Lopez Alvarado’s boyfriend was also detained. He has not seen his newborn and was later deported to Guatemala.
The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday announced that it is on pace to deport nearly 600,000 undocumented immigrants by the end of 2025.
Lopez Alvarado, seven other Americans and one green card holder have filed joint legal claims against the U.S. government, alleging they were wrongfully detained and racially profiled — some claim they were beaten by federal officers.
“What they’re doing is they’re stopping, detaining, arresting, putting people in federal custody and then asking questions later,” said their lawyer, Michael Carrillo.
Juan Rivas, one of the defendants who has a green card, has been working as a day laborer for more than 20 years. Despite having his legal documents on him, Rivas says he was detained at a Home Depot parking lot in Los Angeles on the Fourth of July.
“I was ready to show them when they started hitting me and threw me on the floor,” Rivas said.
CBS News has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment but has not received a response.
As immigration raids have increased across California and other parts of the country, immigration lawyers and advocates warn that a recent Supreme Court decision can put U.S. citizens at risk of being questioned or detained. Carrillo says he has been advising clients to carry their documents every time they leave their house.
Earlier this month, the high court agreed to freeze a district court’s temporary restraining order that prevented federal immigration authorities from stopping people in Southern California without reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. unlawfully. That order barred officials from relying solely on certain factors like a person’s race or occupation as the basis for a detentive stop.
“Where’s my due process? Allow me to present my ID, don’t just throw me to the wall. Don’t just twist my arm,” said Brian Gavidia, a U.S. citizen who was confronted by federal agents outside the car dealership he owns in L.A.
Gavidia told CBS Los Angeles that the agent took both his phone and Real ID. He said his friend started filming and agents released Gavidia after they verified his citizenship. He now says he regrets voting for President Trump.
“I truly believed it was the worst of the worst, not Americans, not our day laborers, not our farmworkers,” Gavidia said, referring to Mr. Trump’s and other administration officials’ vow to deport undocumented immigrants with violent criminal records.
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