A Native American actress, best known for her role in Northern Exposure, has said that she was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Seattle, Washington, who told her that her tribal identity “looked fake”.
Elaine Miles, an Indigenous actress, alleges she was stopped by four masked men as she walked to a bus stop in Redmond. He offered them his ID card from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon, but an ICE agent told him “anybody can make it.”
Miles, who also appeared in The Last of Us, Smoke Signals, The Business of Fancydancing and Skins, told ICE agents to call the tribal enrollment office number on the card.
According to a Seattle Times report of the encounter, the officers refused. Miles himself called the office, after which an officer tried to get his phone but was unsuccessful. Then people left him and went away in their vehicles.
Miles alleges a similar incident happened to his son and uncle – they were first detained and later released by ICE officers, who initially would not acknowledge their tribal identities.
According to a post on Facebook by the Lakota People’s Law Project, Miles told the group: “Tribal ID—the government issued those cards to us like a pedigree dog! It’s not fake!”
Miles’ account points to other Native Americans caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Native News Online reports that a Phoenix-born Indigenous woman was mistakenly taken into custody by immigration officials after being released from jail in Des Moines, Iowa.
“What we’re talking about here is racial profiling,” Seattle-based indigenous rights lawyer Gabriel Galanda told the Seattle newspaper. “People are being pulled over on the street or detained because of the dark color of their skin.”
Galanda said the agents’ refusal to accept Miles’ ID points to “the considerable ignorance about tribal citizenship in society and government in general.”
According to the outlet, the actor’s encounter with ICE agents came on the same day that ICE agents made multiple arrests at Redmond’s Bear Creek Village shopping center, prompting the City Council to shut down its license-plate-reading cameras.
Earlier this year, the Navajo Nation announced it was taking steps to protect its community from federal immigration actions amid reports that some Native Americans have been implicated in U.S. deportation raids.
Since Miles was taken into custody, he said he is now afraid to leave the house alone or at night. Galanda said the possibility of Native Americans being detained is a reminder of the country’s troubled history with indigenous peoples.
“It’s also deeply troubling that in 2025, the first people of this country will essentially have to look over their shoulders,” he said.
<a href