BOSTON — Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is facing backlash after rushing to condemn a Department of Homeland Security operation in Fitchburg that federal officials say was a lawful arrest of a violent offender — not the “cruelty” she claimed.

Around 6:40 p.m. Friday, Pressley posted a dramatic warning on X calling an ICE traffic stop “shameful” and “cruel.” The post went viral almost instantly, racking up more than 1.4 million views and thousands of replies as critics blasted Pressley for misrepresenting the incident before knowing the facts. Many accused her of spreading misinformation and undermining law enforcement to score political points.

Federal officials later identified the woman in the video as Juliana Milena Ojeda-Montoya, an Ecuadorian national accused of stabbing a co-worker twice with scissors and throwing a trash barrel during a 2025 assault. Homeland Security described her as “the worst of the worst,” noting she had been released into the country in 2023 under the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

Imagine FAKING a seizure to help a criminal escape justice.

The target of this operation, Juliana Milena Ojeda-Montoya, is the WORST OF THE WORST.

In August 2025, local police arrested Ojeda-Montoya, a criminal illegal alien from Ecuador, for assault and battery with a…

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) November 7, 2025

According to DHS, Ojeda-Montoya’s husband pretended to suffer a medical emergency during the arrest while agitators surrounded agents. EMTs later found no medical issue. Fitchburg police confirmed the sequence in a written release, saying they were called twice to the scene — first to check on agents’ safety, then to control a crowd that had grown hostile. Officers said they took no enforcement action and were present only “to keep the peace.”

The incident unfolded against the backdrop of Massachusetts’ status as a self-declared sanctuary state, where state officials limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Over the past two years, the state has absorbed a surge of newly arrived migrants, forcing emergency shelters to overflow and pushing costs for housing and services into the billions of dollars, according to state budget filings. Public-safety advocates say the strain has created gaps in enforcement and blurred accountability between state and federal agencies.

Homeland Security officials argue the Fitchburg arrest shows what happens when violent offenders slip through those cracks. Pressley and other progressive Democrats counter that the raids themselves endanger families and violate humanitarian norms — a debate that has defined the Biden era’s “open-border” perception even in deep-blue New England.

Despite DHS’s rebuttal and the Fitchburg police timeline, Pressley doubled down, demanding that federal authorities “release all body-camera footage and names of the masked agents,” a call that law-enforcement unions warned could expose officers to threats.

What began as a viral post has become a political flashpoint, highlighting the divide between Washington rhetoric and the realities on Massachusetts streets. While Pressley accused ICE of cruelty, local police say the episode was a standard enforcement action that turned chaotic only after crowds intervened — a snapshot of the confusion now defining immigration enforcement in the Bay State.