Two dead after car crash while trying to escape ICE agents: report

Two people were killed in a car crash in Bakersfield, Calif., Wednesday while fleeing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents that were trying to pull them over, police said. 

Local news station KRON 4 News reported that the two people, Santo Hilario Garcia, 35, and Marcelina Garcia Profecto, 33, were declared dead on the scene after losing control of the car and crashing into a power line pole. 

According to the report, the pair initially pulled over for the agents, but then attempted to escape by driving off once the ICE agents exited their vehicle.

ICE, under the Trump administration, has been cracking down on immigrants in the United States illegally.  In California alone, ICE said it arrested 20,201 people suspected of residing in the U.S. illegally last year, saying that 81 percent of them reportedly had criminal convictions.

The Trump administration sued California last week over three laws that it claims prevent immigration officials from enforcing federal immigration laws, as California has declared itself a “sanctuary state.”

ICE has come under fire for its activities in California and other states, with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California condemning the agency over the car crash Wednesday.{mosads}

“This horrible tragedy is the direct result of ICE’s inhumane tactics and the fear it provokes in hardworking people who stand to lose everything if they are deported,” said Jennie Pasquarella, the group’s director of immigrants’ rights, according to KRON.  

The civil rights group blamed ICE for staking out roads, a practice that it claims has led to many unlawful arrests of immigrants. 

The agency was partially thwarted in its plan to arrest more than 800 immigrants when the mayor of Oakland warned of the incoming immigration raid last week. Of those immigrants targeted by federal law enforcement, the agency was able to make 232 arrests.