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- U.S. citizen detained by ICE in L.A. says she wasn't given water for 24 hours</p>
<p>Minyvonne BurkeAugust 12, 2025 at 10:12 PM</p>
<p>A U.S. citizen who was detained by immigration agents and accused of obstructing an arrest, before her case was ultimately dismissed, said she is still traumatized by what happened.</p>
<p>Andrea Velez was in downtown Los Angeles on June 24 when she was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. She was charged with assaulting a federal officer while he was attempting to arrest a suspect.</p>
<p>The Department of Justice later dismissed her case without prejudice. The agency did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Velez, who works as a production coordinator for a shoe company, recalled seeing federal agents when her mother and sister dropped her off at work.</p>
<p>"It was like a scene," she told NBC Los Angeles. "They were just ready to attack and chase."</p>
<p>Andrea Velez was detained by federal agents in Los Angeles on June 24. (Union del Barrio)</p>
<p>Velez said she felt someone grab her and slam her to the ground. She said she tried to tell the agent, who was in plainclothes, that she was a citizen, but he told her that she "was interfering with what he was doing, so he was going to arrest me."</p>
<p>"That's when I asked him to show me his ID, his badge number," she said. "I asked him if he had a warrant, and he said I didn't any of that."</p>
<p>A federal criminal complaint alleged that an agent was chasing after a man, and Velez stepped into the agent's path and extended her arm "in an apparent effort to prevent him from apprehending the male subject he was chasing."</p>
<p>The complaint said that Velez's arm hit the agent in the face.</p>
<p>Velez said she denied any wrongdoing and insisted she was a U.S. citizen. She was taken to a detention center in downtown Los Angeles where she gave officers her driver's license and her health insurance card, but she was still booked into jail.</p>
<p>She said she spent two days in the detention center, where she had nothing to drink for 24 hours.</p>
<p>Velez said the ordeal traumatized her, and she has not been able to physically return to work.</p>
<p>"I'm taking things day by day," she told the news station.</p>
<p>Her attorneys told NBC Los Angeles that they are exploring legal options against the federal government.</p>
<p>Her story echoes those of others who have said they were wrongfully detained by immigration agents under President Donald Trump's push for mass deportations.</p>
<p>Job Garcia, a Ph.D. student and photographer, said he was tackled and thrown to the ground by immigration agents for recording a raid at a Home Depot in Los Angeles. He was held for more than 24 hours before his release. In July, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said it was seeking $1 million in damages, alleging that Garcia was assaulted and falsely imprisoned.</p>
<p>In June, a deputy U.S. marshal was briefly detained in the lobby of a federal building in Tucson, Arizona, because he "fit the general description of a subject being sought by ICE," the U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement.</p>
<p>And in May, Georgia college student Ximena Arias-Cristobal was granted bond after she was detained by immigration agents after local police pulled over the wrong car during a traffic stop.</p>
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Source: "AOL General News"
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