The U.S. Department of Homeland Security admits they know the mom and three daughters who say ICE agents left them traumatized when they raided their Oklahoma City home were not the suspects they were after.
Since KFOR first told you about the
family’s ordeal on Monday, hundreds of people from all corners of the country are asking, How could this have happened?
That is the same question KFOR has been asking, and so far, it still has not been answered.
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The actual subjects of the raid, we now know, were suspected human smugglers from Guatemala.
The Northern District of Oklahoma U.S. Attorney’s office told KFOR that U.S. federal agents arrested eight Guatemalan Nationals during a set of raids across the country last Thursday as part of an operation cracking down on illegal immigration ordered by President Trump.
The names of the eight suspects they arrested are the same suspect names listed on the warrant served on Marissa’s house, where none of them were located.
Telling KFOR, “Ice was carrying out a court-authorized search warrant for a large-scale human smuggling investigation. The search warrants included the location of an address where U.S. citizens recently moved. The previous residents were the intended targets.”
Since our
first report aired and was published, it gained international headlines, catching the attention of attorney Patrick Jaicomo.
“I opened my phone and saw this and just thought, here we go again,” said Jaicomo.
He has a good reason to say that.
“Yesterday morning, I argued a case in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of a family from Atlanta who were the victims of a wrong house raid committed by the FBI, who simply failed to check the address on the house before they sent in a SWAT team,” said Jaicomo.
Jaicomo is with the Institute for Justice, a national nonprofit legal advocacy group.
They are representing the Atlanta family in their case free of charge.
He says he was walking out of the U.S. Supreme Court after arguing their case when he saw
Marissa‘s story.
“I mean, what timing is that?”
He says his group his group would be interested in representing Marissa for free, too, telling News 4 her case fits a years-long pattern of questionable raids.
“Based on the facts as I understand them right now, there’s no question that there was a lack of due diligence,” said Jaicomo.
