A landlord attempting to evict a mother and her children from their Burlingame apartment repeatedly threatened to report the woman to federal immigration authorities, according to a lawsuit filed in a district court.

Estela Cano is suing her former landlord at the Bellevue Apartments in Burlingame for discrimination and seeking compensation for the months of abuse she allegedly suffered, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday, Aug. 21.

Landlord Melinda Teruel tried to abruptly evict Cano with her teen and adult children last year and, when the tenants resisted, Teruel threatened to get the mother deported, according to the lawsuit.

Cano’s attorney Araceli Martinez-Olguin said the remarks issued via texts, letters, phone calls and emails are illegal under state and federal laws protecting the rights of tenants from threats made regarding their residency.

“Immigration status is a complicated legal question. And making threats against someone to call immigration are essentially stereotypical threats,” said Martinez-Olguin, an attorney with Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto.

Teruel could not be immediately reached for comment.

The dispute started when Teruel allegedly decided that the unit Cano, a Mexican native, rented for several years at 1417 Bellevue Ave. with her two children was too small for three residents, according to the lawsuit.

Teruel attempted to increase Cano’s rent and get the family to move into a larger unit on the property but, when that arrangement fell apart, a 30-day eviction notice was issued in July 2017, according to the report.

When Cano disobeyed the demand, which Martinez-Olguin noted was an insufficient amount of time to force eviction, the nature and frequency of Teruel’s threats escalated, according to the lawsuit.

“This is my building, my dear, so I’m sorry your file is now going to immigration,” said Teruel in a voicemail cited in the lawsuit, which ended with “OK. Let immigration pick you up.”

A series of similar messages were left for Cano over nearly two months as Teruel applied pressure to get the family to move out. Other efforts included claiming Cano’s information would be shared with the IRS, and that her car would be towed from the property, according to the lawsuit.

“You can be deported,” Teruel allegedly said in a voicemail.

The conditions caused Cano and her family considerable amount of stress and anxiety, according to the lawsuit which claimed her daughter refused to go home from school alone for fear of encountering the landlord.

Ultimately Cano and her children moved from the property at the end of last September, and Martinez-Olguin said they have found a new place in San Mateo County to live.

Teruel kept the tenant’s $1,300 security deposit and suggested an additional nearly $16,000 is owned for damage to the unit, for which Cano claims she is not responsible. The lawsuit seeks the security deposit to be returned, plus additional financial damages.

Martinez-Olguin said she believes the dispute is indicative of a larger societal issue, in which some are feeling more comfortable using race and immigration as grounds for attacks.

“For me on some level, this is a manifestation of the day and age we live in that anti-immigration sentiment can be more readily bandied about,” she said.

As it relates to her client’s case, Martinez-Olguin said federal and state laws have long been in place assuring a tenant is protected from the types of threats Cano faced. She recognized the approval of legislation authored last year by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, clarifying tenant rights in California as the most recent acknowledgment of such laws.

“That legislation was passed essentially to address exactly this problem,” she said.

Ultimately though, Martinez-Olguin said she hopes others appreciate the hard decision made by her client to defend her family in the face of alleged abuse.

“I’m very humbled by the strength and courage of the plaintiff to stand up and say ‘this is wrong. And I’m doing this because it is unjust and it shouldn’t happen to other people,’” she said.