Woman accosted on Bay Area train: ‘Trump might deport you’

Ivet Lolham was riding a Bay Area Rapid Transit train home when a passenger overheard her speaking Assyrian and confronted her.

Lolham pulled out her phone and began recording.

“Trump might deport you,” the woman said in a one-minute video Lolham shared on Facebook late Thursday. “This woman is a stalker from the Middle East. She’s a Middle Eastern terrorist, she’s terrorizing citizens like me and she will probably get deported.”

The incident follows a series of reports of rancor, threats and harassment across California this week tied to a 2016 presidential election marked by angry rhetoric and bitter emotions.

During the campaign, President-elect Donald Trump railed against illegal immigration, describing arriving Mexicans as rapists and criminals and at one point calling for a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the country.

Lolham warned the woman that she planned to post the video on Facebook.

“Nobody’s gonna watch it,” the woman said, later adding, “You’re standing here harassing me, and I think you’re an ugly, mean, evil little pig who might get deported. And I pray that you do.”

At that point, Lolham told the passenger she was a citizen.

“Lucky you. Lucky you,” the woman said. “You made it, just under the wire.”

Lolham could not immediately be reached for comment. Her video was seen more than a million times and shared more than 28,000 times.

Similar events have been reported throughout the state.

Latino high school students in Northern California were given mock “deportation letters” by a classmate in an incident that authorities believe was tied to the election.

In the Bay Area, a principal was put on leave after allegedly making profane anti-Trump comments. The incident occurred at Milpitas High School during a campus walkout, and the principal told the San Jose Mercury News he did nothing wrong.

In Burbank on Thursday, a dispute erupted at a bar where two men argued over the election and immigration policy. One of the men brandished a gun, police said. A suspect was later arrested.

On Wednesday, two men confronted a female student wearing a hijab in a parking lot stairwell at San Diego State. University police said the pair “made comments about President-elect Trump and the Muslim community,” and then stole her keys and her car.

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @AleneTchek

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