loading . . . Indigenous actor Elaine Miles says ICE called her tribal ID ‘fake’ By
Kai Uyehara
Seattle Times breaking news reporter
Elaine Miles was walking to a bus stop in Redmond to go to Target, she said, when four men wearing masks and vests with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement label stepped out of two black SUVs with no front plates and pressed her for her ID.
Miles, an Indigenous actor best known for her roles in “Northern Exposure,” “Smoke Signals,” “Wyvern” and “The Last of Us,” handed them her tribal ID from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon.
Federal government agencies recognize tribal ID as a valid form of identification, and Miles has used it to travel back and forth to Canada and Mexico without any issues.
Yet, Miles recalled one agent calling it “fake.”
“Anyone can make that,” she recalled another agent saying.
Reported encounters between immigration agents and Indigenous people like Miles’ remain rare. But as immigration enforcement has gotten more aggressive, including in the Seattle area, incidents like Miles’ are stoking fears beyond immigrant communities.
Miles said her son and uncle were both detained by ICE agents who initially did not accept their tribal IDs before they were eventually let go.
“What we’re talking about here is racial profiling,” said Seattle-based Indigenous rights attorney Gabriel Galanda, who does not represent Miles. “People are getting pulled over or detained on the street because of the dark color of their skin.”
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ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
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Miles wrote a social media post about her experience, which came on the same day ICE arrested multiple people at Redmond’s Bear Creek Village shopping center.
The arrests sparked strong reaction in Redmond, including its city council voting to turn off Flock Safety license-plate-reading cameras. Although there’s no evidence immigration authorities used Flock Safety footage to make the arrests, councilmembers said they were concerned about the possibility of it happening in the future.
Miles said the men, whom she worried could have been bounty hunters, did not identify themselves when she asked for their names and badge numbers while they detained her at a bus stop by the shopping center.
When the men did not believe Miles’ tribal ID, she pointed to a phone number for the Umatilla Tribal enrollment office on the back of the card.
“Call it,” she said.
When they didn’t, she took out her phone to call the office herself, but the agents tried unsuccessfully to take her phone, she said. That’s when a fifth agent in the SUV whistled over, and the agents went back to their vehicles and left.
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### Related
Redmond turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
Galanda said the agents’ refusal to recognize Miles’ tribal ID speaks of “a fair amount of ignorance about tribal citizenship generally in society and in government.”
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Recently, an Indigenous woman born in Phoenix was mistakenly detained by immigration enforcement upon her discharge from jail in Des Moines, Iowa. She was eventually allowed to leave.
Galanda advises Indigenous people to always be ready with any and all forms of identification in case they are questioned by immigration enforcement, and that they do not escalate the situation.
Still, these detentions have been rare, and Galanda doesn’t want Indigenous people to be afraid.
But for Miles, she said, the damage has been done.
She said she’s afraid to leave the house alone or at night. Her aunt and uncle make her check in with them at the end of every day.
“The prospect of the First Peoples being physically or forcibly stopped or detained is harrowing and reminiscent of this country’s original treatment of the First Peoples,” Galanda said. “It’s also deeply troubling that in 2025, the first people of this country have to essentially look over their shoulders.”
Kai Uyehara: 206-652-6419 or [email protected]. Kai Uyehara is a breaking news reporter at The Seattle Times.
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