A U.S. citizen says she and her three daughters were violently woken to federal immigration agents breaking into their Oklahoma City home and pointing guns in their faces in a case of mistaken identity that’s left them “traumatized.”
“My initial thought was we were being robbed. My daughters, being females, were being kidnapped,” the woman, who was only identified as Marissa, told Oklahoma City station KFOR while sobbing.
“I don’t know who they were. They had guns. It was dark. All the lights were off,” she said.
The woman said she had just moved with her family into the rental home from Maryland about two weeks prior, with her husband planning to join them in the coming days. The roughly 20 agents who forced their way into their home early Thursday said they had a search warrant for the property, but it was for someone who no longer lived there.

Bloomberg via Getty Images
“We’re citizens. That’s what I kept saying. We’re citizens,” she said.
The woman said she and her daughters, who were all undressed, were ordered to go outside in the rain. If they wanted to get dressed, they were told to do it quickly and in front of the agents.
“They wanted me to change in front of all of them, in between all of them,” she said.
A Department of Homeland Security official confirmed to HuffPost Wednesday that ICE carried out “a court authorized search warrant for a large-scale human smuggling investigation” at the property and that “the previous residents were the intended targets.”
The warrant involved eight Guatemalan nationals who were indicted for allegedly smuggling migrants into the United States, the official said. The official did not respond to questions about how the case of mistaken identity is currently being handled.
We Won't Back Down
Your Support Fuels Our Mission
Your Support Fuels Our Mission
Donald Trump has been in office for 100 days. Our newsroom has stood strong — fearless, unflinching, and relentless in pursuit of the truth. And we're not stopping now. Would you support our mission during this critical time in our nation's history?
We remain committed to providing you with the unflinching, fact-based journalism everyone deserves.
Thank you again for your support along the way. We’re truly grateful for readers like you! Your initial support helped get us here and bolstered our newsroom, which kept us strong during uncertain times. Now as we continue, we need your help more than ever. We hope you will join us once again.
We remain committed to providing you with the unflinching, fact-based journalism everyone deserves.
Thank you again for your support along the way. We’re truly grateful for readers like you! Your initial support helped get us here and bolstered our newsroom, which kept us strong during uncertain times. Now as we continue, we need your help more than ever. We hope you will join us once again.
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.
We Won't Back Down
Donald Trump has been in office for 100 days. Our newsroom has stood strong — fearless, unflinching, and relentless in pursuit of the truth. And we're not stopping now. Would you support our mission during this critical time in our nation's history?
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.
The mother, in her interview with KFOR, said her family was left traumatized by what happened and that none of their confiscated items have been returned. This includes their cellphones, computers and life savings in cash.
Before leaving, she said one of the men told her that he knew that the experience had been “a little rough.”
“You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life,” she reacted to that description.