American women detained by Border Patrol for speaking Spanish at gas station
Is speaking Spanish cause to be asked for ID?
Two Montana women — both U.S. citizens — attempted to buy groceries at a local gas station and ended up being detained by a Border Patrol agent just for speaking Spanish.
Two Montana women — both U.S. citizens — attempted to buy groceries at a local gas station and ended up being detained by a Border Patrol agent just for speaking Spanish.
According to KRTV.com, an agent who identified himself as “Agent O’Neal,” asked the women for documents after he overheard them talking in Spanish while picking up eggs and milk.
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Sensing that something was off, Ana Suda first paid for the items, calmly handed over her identification and then began recording the incident.
When she asked the agent why he’d stopped her, his response was what she’d feared.
“Ma’am, the reason I asked you for your ID is because I came in here and saw that you guys are speaking Spanish, which is very unheard of up here.”
Once Suda inquired if he was racially profiling her and her friend, the agent began to backtrack.
“It has nothing to do with that,” the officer responded in the video. “It’s the fact that it has to do with you guys speaking Spanish in the store, in a state where it’s predominantly English-speaking.”
Suda, who was born in El Paso, Tex., told The Washington Post she is planning legal action following the incident.
“I was so embarrassed…being outside in the gas station, and everybody’s looking at you like you’re doing something wrong. I don’t think speaking Spanish is something criminal, you know?” Suda told The Post. “My friend, she started crying. She didn’t stop crying in the truck. And I told her, we are not doing anything wrong.”
The 37-year-old says even her husband, a former probation officer with the Montana Department of Correction, who is still in law enforcement, has questions about what happened: “He thinks it is very bad what this guy was doing because he does not have the right to do it.”
Check out footage of the incident below.
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