A New Orleans woman whose frantic dash to her front door was captured on home security video says she believes she was chased by masked federal agents for one reason: “I’m brown.” The footage, which spread widely online this week, has intensified scrutiny of the tactics used during the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown across Louisiana.
“I have no idea why they targeted me,” said 22-year-old US citizen Jacelynn Guzman in an interview with WWL Louisiana. “That’s honestly all I can think of… It makes me scared for my family. It’s devastating.”
In a statement Friday, the Department of Homeland Security said Guzman resembled someone being sought by border patrol agents in connection with a deportation order.
Agents “ultimately determined she was not the target,” DHS said, adding that they departed without making an arrest.
But the brief encounter offered an unfiltered look at how immigration teams, deployed across the New Orleans region with a goal of making 5,000 arrests, now operate on city streets.
Guzman said she was returning from a neighborhood store in Marrero when an SUV pulled beside her and several other unmarked vehicles arrived. Men in masks and tactical gear jumped out.
Believing she was about to be abducted, she sprinted toward her home while yelling, “Leave me alone!” The video shows at least one masked man chasing her, with others following behind.
Guzman, whose family identifies as Hispanic, told WWL she had no criminal record and immediately informed the agents, “I was born and raised here. I’m a US citizen.” The response, she said, was indifference: “He did not care at all.”
The Trump administration later told WWL the operation was aimed at violent offenders living in the US without legal status. Yet DHS said the individual agents were actually looking for had been charged with felony theft and convicted of possessing stolen property—neither considered violent crimes under Louisiana law.
Still, DHS referred to the unnamed person as a “public safety threat.”
The agency also insisted its officers “identified themselves,” saying they only ran toward Guzman’s home after she did and stopped once they reached the property. Her stepfather, who confronted the men at the door, ordered them to leave.
The video captures him pointing toward the agents and remarking that at least one appeared Hispanic: “Hispanic people against Hispanic people, bro!”
For Guzman, the explanation does little to dispel her concern that racial profiling shaped the encounter. “It’s wrong,” she said. “It just feels like they’re targeting all people of color.”
Immigrant communities across the region have reported heightened fear as dozens of arrests have already taken place.
National data shows that most people held in US immigration detention have no criminal record—an enduring reality that reshapes the debate every time an incident like Guzman’s surfaces.
