Border Patrol arrested her selling tamales. Then she suffered a heart attack. 'I told them: I can't breathe'

https://www.yahoo.com/news/messy-aftermath-immigration-sweep-pacoima-100000239.html

Border Patrol arrested her selling tamales. Then she suffered a heart attack. 'I told them: I can't breathe'
Ruben Vives
Mon, July 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM CDT

The 54-year-old woman was splayed on the sidewalk with her shirt half-raised, unconscious. Nearby, federal immigration agents stood guard as people screamed at them.

Arturo Hermosillo, a U.S. citizen, was in his work van, recording it all when an agent ordered him to back up to make room for an ambulance that was en route for the woman.

As he was reversing, he said, another agent started banging on his window and side view mirror, pushing it in. He couldn't see behind him and felt a bump.

Hermosillo opened his door to tell the agents he couldn’t move. But not long after, they dragged him out of his van.

“I told them I didn’t do anything illegal,” he said.

Hermosillo was arrested and sent to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A. The woman, who later said she had fainted while an agent bear-hugged her to the point she struggled to breathe, underwent heart surgery at a Providence Holy Cross Medical Center. A doctor told her she had suffered a heart attack.

The immigration sweep on June 19, just outside a Lowe’s Home Improvement store, is one of many that have taken place in Southern California and encapsulates the chaotic methods employed to detain people over the last month. A federal judge on Friday ruled that there was sufficient evidence that agents were using racial profiling to target people and ordered a halt to the indiscriminate sweeps, saying they violated the 4th Amendment.

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