What This Unconfirmed L.A Story Reminds Me Of
The details are still unclear, but the pattern? It reminds me of Colombia's "False Positives" scandal.
Erica, a friend of mine, was in Los Angeles this past weekend and shared an important story (I’m putting it below). Since I posted it on Instagram, it has now gotten a lot of attention, and we’re talking to reporters from The Guardian, CNN, CBS, and other outlets who want to investigate this.
I hope someone is able to talk to this family and get first-hand accounts to report on. It is very similar to what we’ve seen in other places around the country.
Less than two weeks ago, we heard about Marcelo Gomes da Silva, an 18-year-old high school student from Massachusetts who was taken by ICE. He was held for six days in a facility without being allowed to shower and had to sleep on a concrete floor. He was finally released last week.
Reading Erica’s post sent chills down my spine, not just because of the horror of what happened to these two kids, but because it reminded me of something that happened in Colombia, the country where I was born. I’ll get to that in a minute.
First, let me share her words verbatim:
"I had a really long in-depth conversation with an incredibly sweet woman who works at a cute little shop in Echo Park (neighborhood of L.A.).
Her two nephews who are U.S. CITIZENS AND MINORS (16 & 17) were taken by ICE on Saturday morning while they were getting groceries. Presumably because they look Hispanic and were wearing work boots and pants with paint on them. The "agents" were dressed in plain clothes with their faces covered.
Nobody knew where they were. They weren't allowed a phone call. The family found a human rights attorney willing to work pro bono & she called everywhere and could not find these boys.
They weren't in the system. They'd simply disappeared. When the attorney eventually found them yesterday, the boys were in a random basement somewhere where they'd been held with other men… no food, no water, no phone call, no bathroom (just buckets), and only the metallic emergency blankets to sleep under.
When the attorney demanded their release, they were moved to a traditional holding cell but still had to wait hours and hours while the attorney provided all of their documentation and proof of citizenship.
Finally, when they were released, one boy had a large cut going down the side of his face, a concussion, and a fever. They hadn't eaten or drank anything at all. Nobody had checked to see if they were okay. They have marks on their wrists from the zip tie handcuffs that were used on them.
They were released to their family at 4:48 am this morning.
The boys are in the hospital getting checked out now, but they are traumatized and in shock.
Please understand that ICE is racially profiling and taking ANYONE. These kids are U.S. Citizens. They had committed no crime. They are MINORS.
This is happening. Now. In front of our faces.
This is why the protests are only growing stronger."
The Colombian Mirror
When I read the story of those two teenagers who were picked up by ICE, U.S. citizens, minors, held in a basement with no food, no water, no phone call, my mind went straight to one of the most painful memories in Colombian history:
Los falsos positivos. The false positives.
Between 2002 and 2008, the Colombian military murdered thousands of innocent civilians, at least 6,402, though human rights groups say it could be over 10,000. Most were poor young men. They were promised jobs, taken far from home, killed, and then dressed up like guerrilla fighters to inflate the military’s success against insurgent groups.
Their deaths were reported as victories.
The motivation was brutal in its simplicity: under intense pressure to show progress in the war against insurgents, Colombian military officers received promotions, bonuses, and recognition based on their reported combat kills. This created a perverse incentive system where innocent lives became currency for career advancement: the more "guerrillas" you killed, the more successful you appeared.
So soldiers began luring vulnerable people from impoverished neighborhoods with promises of work. Once isolated, they were executed and their bodies staged as guerrilla fighters killed in combat.
The parallels to what's happening in Los Angeles are striking and disturbing:
Targeting the Vulnerable: Just as Colombian forces targeted poor young men who wouldn't be missed or defended, ICE appears to be racially profiling people based on their appearance, targeting anyone who "looks Hispanic" regardless of citizenship status, with work boots and paint-stained pants apparently marking them as additional targets for suspicion.
The Disappearing: Like the Colombian victims who vanished from their neighborhoods, these U.S. citizen minors were taken. No records, no phone calls, no trace. A deliberate erasure that prevents accountability and leaves families helpless.
Quota Pressure: While we don't yet know the full scope of ICE's internal incentive structures, the aggressive, indiscriminate targeting suggests a system rewarding numbers over accuracy, arrests over justice, statistics over human rights.
Dehumanization: In Colombia, civilians became "guerrillas" to justify their murder. Here, anyone who "looks" undocumented becomes an "illegal" to justify their detention, abuse, and denial of basic rights, regardless of their actual citizenship status or the fundamental human rights that all people possess.
Institutional Cover-Up: The plain clothes, covered faces, and off-the-books detention in a basement rather than official facilities all suggest an institutional understanding that what's happening is wrong and must be hidden.
Why This Matters
The Colombian military didn't start by murdering thousands of civilians. They started by bending rules, creating systems that valued numbers over human dignity, and looking the other way when the vulnerable disappeared. The horror that followed was the inevitable conclusion of those small compromises with justice.
We have the benefit of historical perspective. We can see the warning signs: systematic targeting based on appearance, disappearances from official systems, denial of basic rights, unofficial detention sites, injuries sustained in custody.
What happened to these two teenagers in Los Angeles is not an isolated incident; it's part of a pattern that history shows us leads to escalating violence against the innocent.
These are not the actions of a system protecting citizens. They are the actions of a system terrorizing them.
The Choice We Face
Do we normalize the disappearance of U.S. citizen minors because they "looked suspicious"?
Do we accept that teenage boys can be held in basements without food, water, or medical care?
Do we allow fundamental rights to become conditional on appearance and perceived immigration status?
Or do we act now, while there's still time to prevent rather than prosecute, to protect rather than apologize?
The boys from Echo Park are home, traumatized but alive. How many others are still in basements we don't know about?
One of the things you can do is march this Saturday, June 14th, on NO KINGS DAY.
You can find a march near you at nokingsorg.
If you want to know how to prepare, my friends (they really are my friends!) at
prepared this post with 10 Must-Know tips for NO KINGS DAY!
I am sending you all a big hug.
