A mother believed she could offer her children a new, slower life by moving from Maryland to Oklahoma. Sadly, just two weeks into the move, the federal government has traumatized her family. The mother of three daughters, whom the media has been calling Marissa, was with her children in their new home when federal agents raided it.
They reportedly pointed guns at Marissa and her children, ordered them outside in the rain despite their state of undress, and seized their belongings, including all the cash the family had on hand to help them with their move. No human being deserves this type of treatment, but Marissa and her daughters weren’t even the intended targets of the raid.
The agents ordered Marissa’s children outside in their underwear.
Marissa rented a house on the northwest side of Oklahoma City. She and her daughters moved in while her husband stayed behind in Maryland, tying up a few loose ends before he planned to join them this weekend. Their plans for a smooth transition were thwarted when 20 armed men burst into the home. “I don’t know who they were,” Marissa told KFOR. “It was dark. All the lights were off.”
The men claimed they were agents with the US Marshals, ICE, and the FBI. US Marshalls later denied having any agents present at that particular raid and denied participating in any way, even though they were “aware of the operation before it happened,” KFOR reported. The agents claimed they had a search warrant and ordered Marissa and her children outside. They didn’t allow them to dress beforehand.
“They wanted me to change in front of all of them, in between all of them,” she said. “My husband has not even seen my daughter in her undergarments – her own dad, because it’s respectful. You have her out there, a minor, in her underwear.”
Marissa’s family wasn’t the intended target.
Marissa did see the search warrant but the names on it did not belong to her or any of her family members. Instead, she recognized them from the mail that had been coming to the house for the former residents. Later, an official from the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the previous residents were the intended targets of the raid, according to The Daily Beast. Authorities believed the suspects were involved in a “large scale human smuggling investigation.”
‘They were treating us like criminals,’ Marissa said.
Marissa tried to assert her family’s innocence. “We just moved here from Maryland,” she told them. “We’re citizens. That’s what I kept saying. We’re citizens.” Her pleas didn’t stop the agents.
“They were very dismissive, very rough, very careless,” she said. “I kept pleading. I kept telling them we weren’t criminals. They were treating us like criminals. We were here by ourselves. We didn’t do anything.” The agents didn’t seem to care. Instead, they collected the family’s phones, laptops and money as “evidence.”
‘You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life,’ Marissa said.
Before they left, Marissa pleaded with them. “I said you took my phone,” she recalled to KFOR. “We have no money. I just moved here. I have to feed my children. I’m going to need gas money. I need to be able to get around. Like, how do you just leave me like this? Like an abandoned dog.”
One of the agents acknowledged the mistreatment. “‘I know it was a little rough this morning,” the agent told Marissa. “It was a little rough?” she repeated incredulously. “You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life. We’re going to have to go get help or get over this somehow.”
The agents left the family with nothing.
Now, not only must the family deal with emotional scars, but they also don’t have any resources. “I said, ‘when are we going to get our stuff back?’ They said it could be days or it could be months,” she said, per KFOR.
The agents refused to leave a business card with Marissa so she has no idea who to contact in order to retrieve her belongings. A spokesperson for the FBI told KFOR that the bureau assisted with the raid but they should direct inquiries to Homeland Security. The news organization reached out to DHS. A spokesperson said they would look into it. KFOR has yet to hear back.
While the family waits for the return of their belongings, Marissa’s friend launched a GoFundMe account to help the family in their time of need. “They are currently in financial difficulties after their money was taken by the agencies,” a description for the fundraiser reads. “The family has also been left traumatized by the raid and is struggling to cope with what has happened. They are trying to find normalcy in their life again.”
