Kerman Mayor María Pacheco called on federal immigration authorities to release two Central Valley mothers and restart their immigration status cases during an Oct. 17, 2025, press conference outside the downtown Fresno federal courthouse.
JUAN ESPARZA LOERA
jesparza@fresnobee.com
Kerman Mayor Maria Pacheco, who recently went viral online after confronting ICE during an operation in her city, is facing accusations she followed a man around west Fresno last week before claiming he looked like a federal immigration agent.
Her accuser, a Fresno hairdresser named Eric Bridges, says the incident left him and his family shook. Pacheco says she’s willing to fight Bridges’ accusations in court.
Bridges said Pacheco began following him Wednesday as he drove toward Kearney Park and then to his sister’s nearby home, where the Kerman mayor allegedly told him, “I’m looking for ICE and you look like ICE.” Bridges said in a written complaint that he has never been an employee for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Department of Homeland Security.
“I was absolutely astounded by the accusation that I resembled an immigration officer,” Bridges wrote in the complaint.
His attorney, Roger Bonakdar, said in a news release that Bridges has filed the complaint against Pacheco with the Fresno Police Department and the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office and has also submitted video of the incident. The complaint says Bridges wants to pursue charges against Pacheco.
Pacheco told The Fresno Bee on Monday that Bridges’ complaint against her is “ridiculous.”
“If he wants to go to court, then we’ll go to court,” Pacheco said. “That’s all I can say.”
Pacheco is running against Fresno City Councilmember Mike Karbassi for the District 1 seat on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors in the Nov. 3 midterm election. Both have condemned federal immigration agents’ recent operations in the Fresno area, which community groups and attorneys say have used racial profiling tactics and roving patrols targeting sites frequented by immigrant workers.
Pacheco on Oct. 8 recorded a confrontation with apparent ICE agents as they detained four people outside a bakery in Kerman that staff say is frequented in the early mornings by laborers on their way to work. Afterward, thousands of social media users shared video of the incident. Bakery staff told The Bee the ICE operation caused fear in Kerman and drove down customer traffic.
Bonakdar accused Pacheco of politicizing ICE’s presence in the Central Valley and that his client has received threats against him since his own alleged encounter with the Kerman mayor.
“Mr. Bridges has been seriously harmed as a consequence of Maria Pacheco’s careless politicking and he will pursue every avenue available for justice,” Bonakdar said in a statement.
Complaint: Kerman mayor ‘encircled’ man’s car
In his complaint, Bridges says Pacheco “encircled” him with her own vehicle as she took pictures of his car in a parking area at Kearney Park.
Eventually, Bridges left the park, and Pacheco followed him as he headed east on Kearney Boulevard to his sister’s home, where the Kerman mayor confronted him, the complaint alleges.
When Pacheco asked Bridges who he was, the hairdresser asked her the same, the complaint says. Pacheco allegedly accused him of driving an unmarked vehicle and told him, “Don’t worry about who I am, I’m someone important,” according to the complaint.
Bridges says in the complaint that it was after the confrontation, as he reviewed his own recording of the incident, that he realized he had encountered the Kerman mayor.
This story was originally published October 19, 2026 at 2:08 PM.
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Erik is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, where he helped launch an effort to better meet the news needs of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief of his community college student newspaper, Riverside City College Viewpoints, where he covered the impacts of the Salton Sea’s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert.