In a chilling episode, an Indian-American physician recounted her aged mother’s harrowing run-in with ICE officers while shopping in a Texas mall. The agents suspiciously interrogated her about her heritage, mistakenly assuming she was a Spanish speaker, only to backtrack when she confirmed her citizenship.
An Indian‑American doctor said her elderly mother was stopped and questioned by ICE agents at a Texas mall because of her accent.Nisha Patel, who practises medicine and shares professional insights online, posted on X that her mother was approached by masked US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents while shopping at an outlet mall. According to Patel, the agents assumed her mother spoke Spanish because of her accent and began addressing her in that language. When she said she did not speak Spanish, they started asking where she was “from,” and rapidly listed countries without giving her time to answer.Patel said her mother responded that she had lived in the United States for 47 years and is a US citizen. The agents only allowed her to leave after she showed a photo of her US passport on her phone.
My mom was stopped and harassed by masked ICE agents while shopping at an outlet mall in Texas. Because she has an accent, they assumed she spoke Spanish and started talking to her in Spanish. When she said she doesn’t speak Spanish, they began demanding where she was “from,”…
— Nisha Patel, MD MS, Dipl of ABOM, CCMS (@DrPlantel)
January 25, 2026
In her post, Patel wrote: “She is a US citizen. She has lived in this country longer than some of them have been alive. If you think this is just about ‘sending criminals back,’ you are dead wrong.”Her mother’s experience adds to growing criticism of ICE and federal immigration enforcement among segments of the US population. The issue has been a focus of protests in cities across the country following the fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents earlier this week. And the shooting of Renee Good earlier this month. The killings have sparked demonstrations in Minneapolis, New York City, San Francisco, Boston and other cities, with participants urging federal agents to leave Blue states immediately. Local leaders have doubled down on this call, Indian nationals are among the top detainees in ICE custody, with 2,647 Indians detained in US for immigration violations in fiscal year 2024, including overstaying visas or entering illegally, ranking them fourth among nationalities held by ICE. As of late 2025, over 3,258 more Indians were detained.However, the process of detaining is often questioned by Democratic leaders as being too aggressive. US President Donald Trump and vice president JD Vance has claimed federal agents are sent to curb the rampant crime and alleged fraud in several states.
