Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, was very upset on Thursday after learning about an accusation that a woman in Maryland hired a group of Guatemalan workers to fix her roof for $10,000. She waited until the job was done and then called Immigration and Customs Enforcement to try to avoid paying them the full amount.
The video shared on X showed the incident.
It said the woman even gave the ladder used by an agent to arrest the workers—men she owed $10,000 for a three-day job. In Spanish, the men yelled, “She called the damn law on us and now we’re totally screwed!” They also said, “They surrounded us! — They surrounded us!” The agents left the workers’ van with doors open, which had tools worth thousands of dollars.
The video was live-streamed for about 30 minutes by a co-worker named Bryan Polanco.
His video included the woman who hired the workers, who was described as “tidying up the house, and still with hatred in her heart.”
Reichlin-Melnick said that if the claims in the video are true, the woman could be facing serious criminal charges.
He wrote, “This is a very serious and disturbing allegation about a homeowner calling ICE on people working on her roof to avoid paying them.” He added that if the allegations are correct, it could be a felony under Maryland law.
Reichlin-Melnick shared a part of the Maryland Criminal Law Code that says, “A person may not obtain, attempt to obtain, or conspire to obtain money, property, labor, services, or anything of value from another person with the person’s consent, if the consent is induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened … notification of law enforcement officials about another person’s undocumented or illegal immigration status.”
If the story is true, it’s just one of many recent cases where people are using immigration laws as a tool for criminal activity.
In January, a man in Wisconsin was convicted of identity theft after he forged letters from a Mexican immigrant who he claimed was planning to assassinate former President Donald Trump. He hoped this would lead to the immigrant being deported before he could testify in court.
Homeowner waits until construction job is nearly done—then calls ICE on 6 of her own workers.
— LongTime🤓FirstTime👨💻 (@LongTimeHistory) March 26, 2026
Woman even provides the ladder used by agent to detain men—who she owes $10,000 for 3 day job.
"She called the damn law on us and now we're totally screwed!" men yell in Spanish. "They… pic.twitter.com/eodDk6RaLf
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