Melody Ballesteros

BREAKING: ICE just tried to deport this woman, but there was just one problem — she was Native American. You read that right: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — the agency supposedly tasked with deporting undocumented immigrants — just tried to deport an Indigenous woman whose ancestors have been here for thousands of years. Leticia Jacobo, a 24-year-old member of Arizona’s Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, was born in Phoenix — but that didn’t stop ICE from trying to ship her “back” to a country she doesn’t even belong to. Here’s how this jaw-dropping injustice unfolded: Jacobo was sitting in a Polk County, Iowa jail after being booked for allegedly driving with a suspended license — nothing violent, nothing serious. Her mother, Ericka Burns, was preparing to pick her up and bring her home when jail staff dropped a bombshell: “She’s not being released. ICE is coming to deport her.” Her mom was stunned. “How can you deport her?” she asked. “She’s Native American!” But the jail staff shrugged it off. They said they were “just holding her” for ICE. No one — not a single person — could explain how or why this was happening. Jacobo’s family went into overdrive — calling, emailing, begging officials to stop what was about to become one of the most shameful bureaucratic blunders in modern history. They reached out to tribal leaders, shared pleas on Facebook, and even showed up at the jail with her birth certificate to prove she’s an American citizen. And still, officials hesitated. Hours ticked by while ICE prepared to take her. Finally, after an agonizing all-night standoff, she was released around 4:30 a.m. — barely. And what’s ICE’s excuse? A “clerical error.” Lt. Mark Chance from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office casually dismissed it as “human error.” Just a little mix-up, they said. The detainer was meant for someone else, and they just happened to attach it to the file of a Native American woman born on U.S. soil. “We’ll have some meetings about it,” Chance said. “This is silly.” Silly? This wasn’t “silly.” This was an attempted deportation of a woman whose people are the original inhabitants of this land, by a government agency that has no idea whose land it’s even on. Let that sink in: the United States government almost deported an Indigenous woman from her own country. This is what happens when an agency like ICE is given unchecked power — where “clerical errors” can destroy lives, and where systemic racism and dehumanization are written into the paperwork. If her family hadn’t fought like hell, Leticia Jacobo could have been vanished into ICE custody — another name lost in a broken, brutal system. It’s time to abolish this corrupt and incompetent agency that can’t even tell the difference between an immigrant and an Indigenous citizen. Because if ICE can come for Native Americans, they can come for anyone. Please like and share if you’re as outraged by this as we are!