Masked ICE Agent Pulls Gun on Virginia Driver Who Says She Was Exercising First Amendment Rights

A Virginia woman’s confrontation with ICE agents escalated from shouted insults to a masked officer approaching her car with his gun drawn, newly released video shows.

Carolina Molina says she was exercising her First Amendment rights and never threatened the agents. Federal officials tell a very different story, accusing her of trying to use her car as a weapon.

NBC4 Washington reported Wednesday, August 12, that Molina shared dashcam and cellphone footage of her Monday encounter with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Falls Church, Virginia.

According to the outlet, Molina had just watched ICE agents arrest two men in a parking lot, where she’d been dropping off business cards for immigration lawyers offering counseling services, when she shouted at the agents from her car window: “You a [expletive]! You’re a [expletive]!”

The footage shows her drive off, then double back. Two SUVs then boxed in her car, and agents approached her window. “Are you following us?” a masked agent asked. “No!” Molina replied. When she began recording on her phone, the agent said, “Yes, you’re recording us. You almost ran us over! You almost ran us over. Stop playing!” He can be seen holding a gun.

“You are so full of [expletive]!” Molina replied. The agent told her, “I will arrest you. Keep it up!” She responded, “I’m a legal citizen,” to which he said, “I don’t care!”

Molina disputes the agent’s version of events, maintaining that she never endangered the officers and only began recording after the confrontation started.

“Once I picked up my phone and started recording him, that’s when the story switched and he started saying, ‘It seems like she’s the one that almost ran you over,'” she said, per News4.

Molina said the encounter left her frightened and insisted that yelling at the agents did not justify the response.

“Honestly, I’m scared. I feel more fear now. … This situation, I feel like it was uncalled for,” she said. “I feel like that is my First Amendment, right, as an American citizen, and I don’t think it calls for this type of excessive force.”

The Department of Homeland Security offered a sharply different account.

According to the outlet, the spokesperson said Molina “began to drive her car in circles around our ICE officers and then attempted to harm officers by weaponizing her vehicle against them … all in an attempt to help illegal aliens get away.”

The statement said the operation targeted people with final removal orders and criminal histories including hit-and-run and drug trafficking offenses, and that Molina “could face criminal prosecution as a result of her actions.”

The agency also claimed, without providing evidence, that officers are seeing a sharp rise in vehicular attacks, assaults and death threats, per the report.