Elaine Miles was walking to a bus stop in Redmond to go to Target, she said, when four men wearing masks and vests with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement label stepped out of two black SUVs with no front plates and pressed her for her ID.
Miles, an Indigenous actor best known for her roles in “Northern Exposure,” “Smoke Signals,” “Wyvern” and “The Last of Us,” handed them her tribal ID from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon.
Federal government agencies recognize tribal ID as a valid form of identification, and Miles has used it to travel back and forth to Canada and Mexico without any issues.
Yet, Miles recalled one agent calling it “fake.”
“Anyone can make that,” she recalled another agent saying.
Reported encounters between immigration agents and Indigenous people like Miles’ remain rare. But as immigration enforcement has gotten more aggressive, including in the Seattle area, incidents like Miles’ are stoking fears beyond immigrant communities.
Miles said her son and uncle were both detained by ICE agents who initially did not accept their tribal IDs before they were eventually let go.
“What we’re talking about here is racial profiling,” said Seattle-based Indigenous rights attorney Gabriel Galanda, who does not represent Miles. “People are getting pulled over or detained on the street because of the dark color of their skin.”
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