In March 2026, a claim circulated online that police in Maryland arrested a woman who called Immigration and Customs Enforcement on workers to avoid paying for a $10,000 roofing job. Some posts said the woman faced charges of exploitation and extortion of migrants (archived) and/or misuse of a federal agency (archived).
One Threads user who claimed the latter charges wrote, "The Maryland woman who called ICE on a whole Guatemalan roofing crew, to avoid paying them, has been arrested for misuse of a federal agency. Good."
Similar claims circulated on X (archived), Facebook (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers wrote in asking about the claim.
The claim came from a since-deleted Facebook livestream by a man who alleged a woman in Cambridge, Maryland, called ICE on him and his colleagues while they worked on her house.
According to a reported statement from ICE, agents arrested six people at the property shown in that livestream on March 23, 2026. The reported ICE statement called the enforcement action "targeted" and said it was not based on a tip from a caller.
Karen Trevino, the woman whom the worker accused of calling ICE, reportedly told the Baltimore Sun neither she nor her father — who reportedly owned the home — called immigration enforcement on March 23. When contacted by Snopes, she declined to comment on whether police had arrested her or anyone else at the house in connection with the enforcement action.
Maryland court records did not show the alleged charges against Trevino or her father.
Given the above, we leave this claim unrated.
We contacted ICE for an updated statement and await a reply.
No record of alleged arrest
We contacted police in Cambridge to ask whether they had arrested Trevino or anyone else at the property on the claimed charges of exploitation and extortion of migrants or misuse of a federal agency.
The Cambridge Police Department had not posted publicly on social media about such an arrest. Searches of Trevino's and her father's names in Maryland court records did not return documents supporting claims of an arrest or charges.
Under Maryland's Statute §3–701, getting someone to carry out work under threat of notifying law enforcement about their immigration status can be extortion, which can be either a felony or misdemeanor based on the value of the work.
At the time of this writing, we found no evidence of arrests or charges against Trevino or her father to do with extortion, exploitation or "misuse of a federal agency." The latter could be charged as fraud, waste or abuse.
Why did ICE show up in Cambridge?
The three central parties to the story — Karen Trevino, ICE and the worker who recorded the livestream from Trevino's house — each presented different versions of how ICE came to detain six people at the Cambridge property.
Claims originally spread from a since-deleted livestream recorded by a man identified by the Spanish-language news outlet Univision as Bryan Polanco.
Polanco's livestream reportedly showed immigration agents detaining roofers in Cambridge. Polanco claimed to Univision that Trevino was the homeowner and had called ICE. This allegation also appeared in a video clip (archived) that a different account claimed came from Polanco's livestream (time-code 2:05).
Polanco also reportedly told Univison Trevino said that if "immigrants" came back to finish the job, she would call immigration enforcement again.
Snopes has not viewed Polanco's livestream and could not reach him to inquire about his allegations.
Trevino, however, reportedly told the Baltimore Sun neither she nor her father, who also appeared in the footage and is the owner of the house in question, called immigration enforcement. As a result of Polanco's claims about her spreading widely, she had reportedly received numerous threats against her and her family.
Meanwhile, the Cambridge Police Department said in a statement (archived) posted to Facebook on March 28 that officers visited the property on March 26 and spoke to an unnamed female tenant. That tenant reportedly told officers she did not call ICE nor hire the roofing company whose workers ICE detained. It was unclear whether the tenant was Trevino.
Roofing work at the property had resumed on March 25, according to police.
The department said it would be keeping an "increased Police presence around the residence" due to fears tenants may be targeted by further threats or abusive behavior.
Snopes previously investigated claims that ICE agents in Illinois removed ladders to trap workers on a roof before arresting them.