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US Immigration Officials are unlawfully arresting and detaining US citizens. Is ICE abusing its power?
Since Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has taken extreme measures to attain their goal of mass deportation: this includes wrongfully arresting and detaining US citizens.
ICE claims it ‘cannot assert its civil immigration enforcement authority to arrest and/or detain a US citizen’ unless said citizen allegedly ‘interfered’ with the work of ICE officials or assaulted ICE officials.
Yet, Propublica found that over 170 US Citizens have been held by ICE agents, many of whom have been ‘kicked, dragged and detained for days’ and many of whose arrests are linked to the racial profiling of Latino communities.
On September 8, the Supreme Court overruled a court order preventing racial profiling in ICE raids. In a 6-3 vote on ‘Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem’, the Supreme Court gave ICE permission to stop anyone they suspect may be in the US illegally, even if their suspicion is piqued purely by ethnicity.
When dissenting this decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, ‘We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.’
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh claims that if ICE learns that the individuals they detained are US citizens, they ‘promptly let the individual go’ – however evidence indicates the contrary.
Mounting evidence against ICE
On June 24, ICE agents grabbed and handcuffed Andrea Velez, a woman who got caught up in a raid of street vendors on her way to work. Ms. Velez recalls not being given water for 24 hours while in ICE detention, according to NBC News. Ms. Velez says she repeatedly told the agents she was a citizen during the arrest, but they nonetheless detained her.
In June 2025, Cary Lopez was nine months pregnant when she tried to document the detainment of her partner and another individual by ICE in Hawthorne, California. Consequently, she was detained by ICE herself, and following her detention, experienced severe stomach pains that resulted in hospitalization.
Ms. Lopez told Noticias Telemundo, ‘I crouched down and held my belly, because I was scared they would hurt me. Three agents were grabbing me and trying to handcuff me.’
On September 9, Rafie Ollah Shouhed, a 79-year-old business owner and US citizen was body-slammed and detained by ICE agents during a raid at his Van Nuys car wash.
Mr. Shouhed alleges he attempted to show proof of his employees’ work authorization but was cursed at by ICE agents and forcibly thrown to the pavement. As a result, Mr. Shouhed suffered from broken ribs and a traumatic brain injury, according to a federal tort claim filed by Mr. Shouhed’s attorneys.
Mr. Shouhed described his experience saying, ‘Three big people were sitting on my back, the way they tore me down… I was begging them. I have a heart condition’, according to ABC News.
Leo Garcia Venegas, a man born and raised in the US who works at a construction site, has been unlawfully detained by ICE twice.
His attorney, Jaba Tsitsuashvili claimed that despite Mr. Venegas showing ICE agents his US citizenship card, he remained incarcerated for an extra half an hour. Mr. Tsitsuashvili asserted that ICE agents only went after Latino employees, and did not target any other employees on the construction site, according to ABC News.
