Brawley couple claims racial profiling by Border Patrol
Karina Bazarte
JACUMBA, Calif. (KYMA, KECY) – A married couple from Brawley are going viral after claiming they were racially profiled when Border Patrol stopped them.
The couple says they were on their way to the dentist in San Diego, but decided to stop in the area Jacumba last week.
That’s when George and Esmeralda Doilez who are U.S. citizens were stopped by a Border Patrol agent.
“We saw white trucks that were not marked either going back and forth but we didn’t think anything of it because we are American Citizens why should we be scared in our own county,” said George.
The couple said the agents were first wearing masks and lower it when he started talking.
George says the agent claimed he was looking for an undocumented person in the area and he was doing U-turns. That’s when his wife decided to record the whole encounter.
“It all happened in the first ten minutes where he switched it came from an illegal Mexican on the loose…a drug dealer activity going on and possible smuggling, and then it turned into I’m just out here for a YouTube experience and called me a YouTuber several times, and we have never had a YouTube account till now,” George shared.
Esmeralda says she was scared because she didn’t know what was going to happen.
“The guy next to me was so jumpy I did not know. I had my seatbelt on and I kept thinking, ‘Okay, if they do mash the window and they try to pull me out I have my seatbelt on and I am going to get chocked and I didn’t want to get my belt off because oh she is trying to do something,” said Esmeralda.
In the video, you can see George pulls out his I.D. and puts it on the window for the agent to see. The agent then sees the I.D.
George says Border Patrol called a K9 unit to search their car and found a small amount of legally purchased marijuana.
After the search, in the video you can hear the agent saying he can seize their vehicle and ticket them for having cannibas, instead let the couple go off with a warning.
The couple believes they were racially profiled and that other people could also fall victim. .
“If you are a person of color brown, yellow, pink…whatever you are, if you don’t fit their description and their ethnicity you are in trouble and at risk of being searched,” said George.
The encounter lasted for about 40 minutes, and Border Patrol has not commented on the stop.
Watch the full YouTube video here.