The Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement policies are taking a toll on more than just the undocumented aliens they are targeting.
On Sunday, Cary López Alvarado, an American citizen born in Los Angeles who is nine months pregnant, was hospitalized after being released from federal custody one week before her due date. López Alvarado said she started experiencing sharp pains in her abdomen after she lost her balance when agents "shoved her" while attempting to arrest her undocumented coworkers. "I crouched down and held my belly, because I was scared they would hurt me," she told Telemundo 52, NBC's sister station in Los Angeles.
López Alvarado was detained after attempting to block two masked Border Patrol agents from entering her place of work without a warrant. While performing maintenance work in a building in Hawthorne, California, on Sunday, she and her cousin—also an American citizen—opened the parking gate to allow López Alvarado's partner, Brian Najera, and another co-worker to enter. Najera and the co-worker—who are both undocumented—had been followed in a marked U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicle. López Alvarado blocked the agents from entering the gated parking lot and captured her interactions with them on video while telling the agents: "I'm going to need you guys to leave. This is private property."
