Elaine Miles, the celebrated Native American actor famed for her role in the television series Northern Exposure, has reported a distressing encounter where she was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Seattle, Washington.
The incident, which underscores ongoing tensions surrounding racial profiling and indigenous rights, saw the actor confronted by four masked men while she was walking to a bus stop in Redmond.
The Confrontation and Detainment
According to Miles's account, she offered the officers her official tribal identification card from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon. Shockingly, an ICE agent dismissed the government-issued document, stating that "anyone can make that."
Miles, who has also appeared in productions such as The Last of Us and Smoke Signals, responded by instructing the agents to call the tribal enrollment office, the number for which was printed directly on the card. The Seattle Times reported that the officers refused to make the call.
Taking matters into her own hands, Miles called the office herself. It was at this point that one of the officers attempted to seize her phone, though he was unsuccessful. Following this altercation, the men released her and departed in their vehicles.
A Pattern of Profiling
This was not an isolated event for Miles's family. She revealed that a similar thing has happened to her son and uncle, who were also previously detained and later released by ICE officers who initially refused to accept their tribal identification.
In a powerful statement to the Lakota People’s Law Project on Facebook, Miles expressed her fury, declaring, "Tribal IDs—the government issued those damn cards to us like a pedigree dog! It’s not fake!"
Her experience aligns with other reports of Native Americans being caught in wider immigration enforcement actions. For instance, Native News Online documented the case of an Indigenous woman born in Phoenix who was mistakenly detained by immigration authorities in Iowa.
Expert Condemnation and Wider Implications
Seattle-based Indigenous rights attorney, Gabriel Galanda, labelled the incident as clear-cut racial profiling. He told the Seattle Times, "People are getting pulled over or detained on the street because of the dark color of their skin."
Galanda further emphasised that the agents' refusal to acknowledge the validity of the tribal ID highlights "a fair amount of ignorance about tribal citizenship generally in society and in government."
The actor's detainment occurred on the same day ICE agents conducted several arrests at Redmond’s Bear Creek Village shopping centre, an operation that prompted the city council to deactivate its license-plate-reading cameras.
This event has had a profound personal impact on Miles, who confessed she is now afraid to leave the house alone or at night. Galanda poignantly connected this fear to a darker historical context, noting the prospect of Native Americans being detained is reminiscent of the country's troubled history with its Indigenous peoples.
"It’s also deeply troubling that in 2025, the first people of this country have to essentially look over their shoulders," he added.
