Video of Woman Boxed In by Unmarked Cars Calls Into Question Homan's Demand to 'Comply' With ICE or Die

As US Immigration and Customs Enforcement deals with the fallout of two fatal shootings, President Donald Trump's border czar Tom Homan has said the deaths were the fault of victims who did not "comply" with agents.

"It comes down to one simple fact. These people failed to comply with law enforcement," Homan said on Monday outside the White House. "All they had to do was simply comply. If they did, they'd be alive today."

Questions remain about the extent to which the two men killed earlier this month—Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Johan Sebastián Guerrero in Maine—defied ICE agents leading up to their arrests, and the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) initial narrative that the two men attempted to attack agents with their vehicles has been undercut by video and eyewitness evidence.

Meanwhile, legal experts have noted that failure to comply with law enforcement on its own is not a justification for deadly force under DHS guidelines or the guidelines of any other law enforcement agency, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that lethal force must be reserved for situations where suspects pose an immediate danger.

ICE critics have further pointed out that the agency’s unprecedented tactics under the second Trump administration—the use of unmarked cars, the refusal to self-identify, and the use of excessive force without clear justifications—make compliance impossible in many cases.

A prominent social media user known as Jesus Freakin' Congress, who catalogs ICE abuses on her account for more than 50,000 followers, drew attention to a case out of Schaumburg, Illinois, as "an example of what [Homan] wants you to comply with."

The video, filmed by Instagram user Mari Elena months earlier and posted this week, shows what she believed to be agents in unmarked vehicles following her as she attempted to leave a parking lot before a gray SUV suddenly cut her off as she approached an intersection.

"I saw what appeared to be ICE agents in a parking lot and began recording them from a distance," she explained in the post. "After they noticed I was recording, several of their vehicles drove past me. Because I was alone, I decided to leave the parking lot. As I was leaving, four ICE vehicles surrounded my vehicle in the middle of the road."

Video shows the gray SUV sitting motionless in front of Mari as she honked repeatedly. She had nowhere to go without hitting either the curb or the vehicle in front of her. After blocking her for over a minute, the vehicle drove through the intersection, allowing Mari to leave.

At no point did any of the vehicles activate their emergency lights to indicate that they were law enforcement or that she was being detained.

Jesus Freakin' Congress noted the difficulty this posed for Mari, who "wasn’t even 100% sure" that the men boxing in her car were ICE agents.

Imagine being a woman, alone in your car. A group of cars you cannot clearly identify as law enforcement, start following you. They don’t turn on emergency lights. They don’t clearly identify themselves. And one of them cuts you off and [is] blocking your vehicle from being able to drive away.

What are you supposed to think is happening? Because from your perspective, it looks like you are being kidnapped by random people.

And that is the terrifying part of what ICE is doing. They are creating situations where people have no idea whether the people surrounding them are legitimate law enforcement officers, or strangers attempting to abduct, or rob them. And Tom Homan’s answer to being kidnapped, or robbed, is… “Just comply.”

Don’t try to drive away. Don’t defend yourself. Don’t try to escape. Just calmly allow unidentified people, in unmarked vehicles, to follow you, box you in, and potentially kidnap or rob you… Because if they happen to be ICE agents, and you react like a normal person who believes they are being kidnapped, you could be assaulted, detained, or even shot. Do you understand how dangerous and insane that is?!?

“Just comply” means women are being told to surrender to potential kidnappers, and hope they turn out to be government agents. And if they don’t? Tom Homan says it’s their fault for not complying.

Although Mari was not able to confirm that the vehicles boxing her in were driven by ICE agents, her case represents the type of scenario in which Homan demands people to simply "comply."

Since it became commonplace for faceless agents to prowl the streets, there have been numerous documented cases of people impersonating immigration agents in order to kidnap, rob, and sexually assault victims.

The FBI itself put out a bulletin last year urging agents to identify themselves to prevent confusion. However, there is no evidence that DHS has implemented those guidelines.

According to a report from Wired on Wednesday, the Trump administration has sued at least five states, as well as the city of Philadelphia, in order to block laws that would stop agents from wearing masks during operations.

Witnesses say that in the incident that led to Salgado's shooting, agents did not identify themselves as law enforcement before the encounter escalated. ICE has not produced evidence that agents identified themselves before shooting Guerrero in Maine. In both cases, the men killed were not the targets of ICE's operations.

In the wake of Homan's demands that those approached by immigration agents "comply", legal experts have warned that ICE's tactics are creating fear that compels people to do the exact opposite.

"ICE and other federal immigration agents have made quick compliance difficult or impossible," Hiroshi Motomura, professor of immigration and citizenship law at the UCLA School of Law, told HuffPost. "Many agents aren't identifying themselves in any trustworthy way."

"It's only natural for people to not comply as quickly as officers might like," he continued. "In these moments of apprehension and fear, some officers seem to be escalating into violence."