Jose Mejia Hernandez, a 45-year-old Mexican immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for 18 years and works two jobs in commercial cleaning and office maintenance, was walking to a bus stop near Columbia Pike in Arlington, Virginia on August 11 when plainclothes, masked ICE agents in an unmarked vehicle approached him without identifying themselves. He fled, was shocked with a stun gun, and was struck by a vehicle, suffering two black eyes, facial lacerations, brain swelling, and a subarachnoid brain bleed; witnesses described the impact as hitting "human flesh." He was hospitalized for several days at George Washington University Hospital with ICE officers stationed in his room, returned for an MRI days later due to worsening symptoms, and was later fitted with an ankle monitor he says delayed further medical testing. His attorneys say a hospital employee had to demand he be placed in a bed and given an interpreter, and that he now struggles to eat, sleep, speak normally, or work. They have filed a police report seeking criminal charges, notified federal agencies under the Federal Tort Claims Act, filed a $35 million excessive force claim, and are pursuing a U visa on his behalf. DHS disputes his account, saying officers used necessary force after he attempted to flee and denying he was ever unconscious, while citing a prior voluntary return to Mexico and a 2020 public intoxication conviction. He has been placed in deportation proceedings, and Arlington County Police have opened an investigation. Virginia officials including Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and Reps. Don Beyer, Suhas Subramanyam and James Walkinshaw have criticized the circumstances of his arrest, which occurred during a broader ICE enforcement surge that led to roughly 1,300 arrests across the D.C. area in August.