Jamie Lee Curtis Joins Outrage Over Viral ICE Incident Involving Ecuadorian Woman

Hollywood legend Jamie Lee Curtis is speaking out after disturbing footage surfaced of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer violently pushing an Ecuadorian woman inside New York immigration courts. The viral clip has sparked widespread outrage, leading to the officer being placed on administrative leave while an investigation unfolds. The video, which has been widely shared across social media, shows an ICE officer forcefully pushing a woman toward a wall before shoving her to the ground. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the officer’s behavior was “unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE.”

On Thursday, Jamie Lee Curtis took to Instagram to amplify the shocking images. Sharing a series of photos from the incident, the Halloween star captioned her post with one word in bold, “WHY?”

Curtis reposted activist Steffi Keith’s original account of the events, which described the woman’s horror at her husband’s detention and the violent escalation that followed. The repost included hashtags like #ICE and #immigration, drawing further attention to the viral video.

In the clip, the woman, who had been attending immigration court with her family for an asylum case, reportedly pleaded with agents not to deport her husband, saying his return to Ecuador would be a death sentence. Witnesses say she was heard begging, “Take me instead.”

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the officer has been relieved of his duties pending a full investigation. “Our ICE law enforcement are held to the highest professional standards,” she said.

Curtis’s followers quickly flooded the comments section with outrage and heartbreak over the images. “This is in front of the cameras, can you imagine when nobody is watching?” one user wrote.

Another added, “In front of their children?!! It’s disgusting. Asylum is not illegal!!!”

Others pointed directly to the political climate. “Immigrants are not the crisis in America," someone commented. "The inhumane treatment of immigrants by the Trump administration is the crisis in America.”

Many described the incident as an “abuse of power,” with one user asking, “What kind of disgusting excuse for a man assaults a woman? And in front of her children?”

This confrontation comes amid growing tension between federal law enforcement and the public inside immigration courthouses. Over the past five months, ICE has increased its presence in New York’s immigration courts, which are technically operated by the Department of Justice.

The heightened footprint has fueled confrontations, confusion over legal authority, and explosive clashes like the one captured in the viral video. Advocacy groups warn that such displays of aggression further erode trust between immigrant families and the justice system.

Jamie Lee Curtis’s decision to spotlight the viral ICE incident is hardly out of character. The Academy Award–winning actress has long used her platform to champion humanitarian and social justice causes. From advocating for children’s hospitals and addiction recovery programs to speaking out on issues of gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights, Curtis has consistently leveraged her celebrity for activism beyond Hollywood.

More recently, Curtis has also been candid about her emotions surrounding the assassination of Turning Point USA cofounder Charlie Kirk. The "Freakier Friday" star broke down in tears on the "WTF with Marc Maron" podcast while reflecting on his killing. “I disagreed with him on almost every point I ever heard him say,” she admitted. “But I believe he was a man of faith, and I hope in that moment when he died, that he felt connected to his faith, even though his ideas were abhorrent to me.”

She added, “I still believe he’s a father and a husband and a man of faith, and I hope whatever connection to God means that he felt it.”

In regard to the recent ICE incident, the officer involved in the situation has been placed on administrative leave, but for many activists, that step falls far short of true accountability. Immigration advocates are calling for broader reforms, including limits on ICE’s role inside courthouses and greater transparency in how asylum seekers are treated.