She was a US citizen. ICE told her, “No one is going to help you. You're all criminals.” Thrown to the pavement, arrested, bruised and hospitalized. She was just driving to work - in case you thought your choices could keep you safe. U.S. citizen Dayanne Figueroa was simply doing what you probably do every weekday: driving to work. She’s a 31-year-old paralegal who was born and raised in the United States. When her lane cleared, she honked and moved forward. That’s when an unmarked SUV swerved into her car and ICE agents surrounded her, guns drawn. They threw her to the pavement and handcuffed her. She was placed in a van between two terrified men. And when she begged the masked agents to identify themselves, telling them that she was a U.S. citizen, they simply said: “No one is going to help you. You’re all criminals.” She was held for four hours. Vulnerable after recently undergoing kidney surgery, she was hospitalized for the bruising and urinary tract infection after her detention. That was just the beginning of her misery. DHS decided to smear her publicly. Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called her an “agitator” “arrested for assault on a federal agent” - even though she wasn’t attempting to interact with federal agents at all. She was just trying to get to work. How many U.S. citizens and legal residents like Dayanne have been swept up, detained, assaulted and traumatized in this crackdown? We may never know, but we know enough to understand that this is wrong - and that Secretary Noem’s claim that no U.S. citizens were detained is an outright lie. Dayanne says, “I love my country very much. And I also love my culture and my community. And I have to protect both.” She shouldn’t have to choose. She shouldn’t have been brutalized. And she sure as hell shouldn’t have been slandered by her own government for telling the truth about it. archive.is/F1zp8