A San Francisco resident was arrested and detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement this week in a video that has gone viral and infuriated the city’s liberals.
Iryna Gorb, 38, was caught by agents Wednesday at the San Francisco International Airport as she was arriving back from Portland. The barista and professional photographer is from Ukraine and had overstayed her visa by 15 years, authorities said.
In the video, a woman identified as Gorb is seen kneeling on the ground with a number of people standing around her in front of a shop. Two to three ICE agents, in plain clothes, seem to be forcing her to stay on the ground.
“You’re choking me!” she yells. “You’re f– choking me!”
“We’re actually not choking you, please take a breath,” an agent can be heard saying.
“Please, please help me!” she pleads to about four to five onlookers at the airport. She yells that the officers are ICE and that she is from Ukraine.
She keeps yelling as agents put her in restraints, demanding she be let go.
Throughout, the onlookers attempt to offer assistance, asking one of the agents to show his badge. They question the agents about what she’s being arrested for. One onlooker tries to call wider attention to the situation.
“This is ICE, America. Undercover, America,” a woman says out loud to the crowd.
Gorb was promptly pushed away in a wheelchair by the federal agents, a commenter said.
The woman had been living in America for 16 years, Mission Local reported.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told The Post that she lawfully entered the United States on July 6, 2010, under a visa that allowed her to stay in the country until May 31, 2011.
However, Gorb overstayed her visa and remained in the United States illegally for 15 years, ICE alleged.
She is in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.
The confrontation only happened because she attempted to flee and resisted arrest, according to the department.
“Being in detention is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App,” the DHS spokesperson said.
Andy Eblin, a friend of Gorb, told Mission Local that she called him from ICE’s Stockton office to tell the Better Half coffee shop she couldn’t come to work. A group of friends are tracking her and attempting to help her case, he added.
The incident sparked a furious outcry among the city’s progressive base, including from state Sen. Scott Wiener, who is running to replace Nancy Pelosi in Congress.
“Iryna Gorb made a home in San Francisco and is one of many people who help make San Francisco run,” Wiener said. “Iryna committed no crime, but ICE nevertheless violently grabbed her and is now trying to deport her to Ukraine, a war zone currently being invaded and bombed by Putin.”
Richmond City Councilmember Doria Robinson, who shared the video online, described the arrest as “an abduction.”
“I have no words,” she wrote. “This is unreal.”
A similar incident of an ICE arrest at the airport happened in March, when the agency arrested a woman who was part of a family of illegal Guatemalan migrants who have had removal orders since 2019.
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