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UPDATE 8/22 — Arlington County Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti:
“Folks,
I’ve received from a constituent the County Board’s response to a demand that the ACPD investigate the beating of Jose Mejia Hernandez. I’m screenshotting a part of the totally inadequate response implying that ACPD cannot investigate misconduct by ICE because it cannot be involved in federal immigration enforcement. It’s true that ACPD cannot (and should not) involve itself in legitimate immigration enforcement. But how are we to know what is and what is legitimate if these masked men are not challenged? And here’s the second and more alarming thing: our local and state police are the only ones who can investigate crimes committed by federal officials. They absolutely have the power and the duty to investigate inappropriate use of force and other violations of state law. Those are crimes and federal officials are NOT immune from investigation and prosecution when they violate state law.
EDIT: I’m adding a third screenshot of the ACPD response hiding behind the notion that there was no police report filed in this case. This response was sent yesterday to a constituent. I want to be clear: I have asked for an investigation. Multiple members of the community have been asking for an investigation. SMH”
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Arlington/Falls Church Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti is exactly right; this story (“A Virginia man who says he woke up in hospital with a brain haemorrhage after being apprehended by ICE is now facing another alarming hurdle, with his attorney claiming an ankle monitor prevented doctors from carrying out an MRI needed to assess the extent of his injuries.”) is “deeply disturbing.” What the hell happened here? It’s good to see Dehghani-Tafti digging into this; we definitely need answers about this incident which “reportedly happened around 6:30 a.m. on 11 August in Arlington, Virginia, when Mejia Hernandez was walking to work…He says he was then struck by what he believes was a Taser or stun gun. From that point, his memory disappears. He does not remember how he was injured, who transported him or what happened immediately afterwards. He eventually woke up in hospital with serious facial injuries consistent with blunt force trauma. His injuries reportedly included black eyes, significant bruising, cuts and seven stitches to his lip.”
As Dehghani-Tafti says:
“This is deeply disturbing. I am committed to upholding the rule of law and holding all individuals who violate the law in our community accountable in the appropriate ways. No one is above the law – not any individual, not law enforcement, and not federal officials – no one.
I have reached out to the Arlington County Police Department and to the Attorney General’s Office for support. I have urged the ACPD to immediately conduct a thorough investigation to determine what happened here.
Anyone who has information, photos, video, or any evidence is urged to come forward and submit it via email to CWAtips@arlingtonva.us. Please include name, address, and contact information if submitting any evidence. Evidence submitted anonymously may not be admissible in a court of law.”
Also, see this by Aaron Parnas:
EXCLUSIVE: I’ve obtained a detailed account from the attorney representing Jose Mejia Hernandez, a man who says he was violently apprehended, hospitalized with a brain bleed, and held by ICE with almost no communication to his own family for three days.
On the morning of August 11, at around 6:30 a.m., Mejia Hernandez was walking to work when a truck sped up on him and two men jumped out and ran toward him. Scared and not knowing who they were, he ran. While fleeing, he says he was hit with what he believes was a stun gun or Taser. He has no memory of anything after that, not how he was injured, not how he was transported, nothing, until he woke up in a hospital many hours later with serious facial injuries consistent with blunt force trauma.
According to his attorney, two ICE agents stayed at his bedside the entire time he was hospitalized. He was never given a private moment with his own doctors. When he asked the ICE agents what happened to him, they told him they didn’t know. He says hospital staff seemed reluctant to speak openly in front of the agents, and that medical staff appeared to communicate more with ICE than with him directly. A nurse eventually told him quietly, in Spanish, that he’d suffered a brain bleed and brain swelling, but he says he never got a full explanation of his diagnosis or how he got hurt.
Meanwhile, his wife and stepchild had no idea where he was for about three days. Neither DHS nor the hospital, according to his lawyer, ever notified his family that he’d been detained, injured, or hospitalized.
When ICE decided to discharge him, he says he didn’t even understand he was being released. He was driven from the hospital, given food and told to contact his family, then taken to an ICE office where they strapped a GPS ankle monitor on him and handed him a Notice to Appear.
By Friday he felt significantly worse and went back to the hospital, where he was again diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and brain bleed and stayed for two more days. His lawyer says doctors couldn’t even complete the imaging they needed because of the ankle monitor. When he later went to his ISAP appointment still in pain, dizzy, with doctors saying he needed an MRI, ICE reportedly refused to remove the monitor unless he could produce a specific MRI appointment date and time, forcing him to bounce back and forth between the hospital and immigration offices just to get basic care while suffering from a brain injury.
His attorney is now demanding a full accounting: who was involved, what force was used, why his family wasn’t notified, why ICE was reportedly more involved in his medical communications than he was, and preservation of every record, custody log, and communication tied to this case. Mejia Hernandez still needs an MRI and further evaluation for a serious neurological injury.
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Beyer Warns Of Increased ICE Violence And Warrantless Detention In Northern Virginia
August 18, 2026 (Washington, D.C.) – Rep. Don Beyer today issued the following statement on recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) encounters in Northern Virginia:
“The injuries to Jose Mejia Hernandez and his account of how he received them are extremely disturbing, and I am seeking further details about what happened to him in Arlington. It essential to establish the facts in this case, and, if this is another instance of unjustified violence by ICE agents, to hold them accountable.
“My office has received reports of several other ICE encounters in Northern Virginia in the past 10 days that featured unjustified violence or apparently warrantless detention. The pattern that emerges in the descriptions is of ICE agents stopping people outside or on the street, asking for ID, and often responding with violence when their orders are questioned, regardless of whether those orders violate individuals’ rights.
“In the case of Carolina Molina, ICE agents were filmed pointing a gun at a citizen because she verbally challenged and filmed them, activities which are protected by the First Amendment. I look forward to meeting with Ms. Molina soon to hear her perspective on these events and discuss next steps.
“I urge Northern Virginians to exercise extreme caution. ICE agents are here, they are regularly ignoring their training and departmental regulations that call for deescalation, they are disappearing people, and they are all too frequently becoming out of control or violent. I thank constituents who have alerted my office to these activities, and encourage all residents to review and remember their constitutional rights. Our community is diverse and inclusive, and we must work together to ensure that our neighbors are safe and that peace, law, and order can prevail.”
