"They asked me to open my eyes wide for the photo, so I did. I opened my eyes wide for the camera," she said.

The officers were then able to identify her. Mejías, who had a pending asylum case, was detained and eventually deported. She is now living in Venezuela with her family.

Nicole Hallett, a law professor at the University of Chicago and director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic, believes the officers wanted more than just an image of Mejías' face: She thinks they wanted a photo of her irises.

"There were other people who were arrested during this raid who reported having a photo taken of them and then having details about them known to the officers. Norelly is the one that we were most certain was an iris scan because of the detail about how she needed to open her eyes," Hallett said.

Read more at NPR