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BULLOCH COUNTY, Ga. () — Nearly three weeks after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents took a handful of people out of Bulloch County, one woman who was released shared her story.
In this story we’ll call her “Jane,” because she wanted to hide her identity fearing backlash as she’s the only one of her coworkers who was able to return home since the traffic stop three weeks ago.
“[When] I came into this country, it was with hope that I would be able to provide a better life for my kids,” she said. “I never imagined that it would turn into a constant fear that one day they don’t see me come in through that door.”
That’s exactly what almost happened three weeks ago as Jane was on the way to a job painting houses in Savannah.
“I saw, far away, the police coming behind us,” she said. “I never imagined that they were coming for us.”
In bodycam video from Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office, deputies are helping ICE agents find immigrants they said are in the county illegally.
The incident report said deputies pulled them over because the driver veered over the white line on the side of the road and someone wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Jane said they had been following her car for miles before that stop.
“How they were sitting back there was dangerous especially with all that stuff back there,” one officer said in the body cam video.
Jane said she was terrified as deputies threatened to break into the van to get to the people inside.
“Tell him he can open the window or I’m going to bust it in and drag him out through the window,” said one of the officers in the video.
Masked men tied up her coworkers and laughed as they did it, she said.
“I feel humiliated,” she said. “We believe that we are not harming people, we just want to work. It’s something inhumane that they’re doing”
She said there was only one officer who spoke Spanish which made it difficult, if not impossible, to understand what they were being detained for.
“I didn’t like to see [my coworkers] like that… Being taken because they are honest and hard-working people.”
Ultimately, she was put in the back of a deputy’s vehicle, wondering if she would make it home to her kids. She was eventually released, thanks to her visa.
But she didn’t walk away unscathed. She has two children she’s raising on her own, after her partner was taken to a detention center.
“I believe that is my strength,” she said. “That is what motivates each of us to go to work even with fear. Because we want to provide the basic needs to our children. That’s why we go out even if we’re scared.”
She told she’s been able to get in contact with her coworkers, saying they are now in a detention center in California. She said they’ve all gotten sick while in custody.
There’s no word on whether they will be released soon, or ever.