Lawmakers want count of US citizens held by immigration agents

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s immigration policies have led to increasingly visible incidents of U.S. citizens being caught up in wrongful detention, and Democratic members of Congress say the administration has not responded to requests for information about the number of incidents.

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said indiscriminate enforcement of immigration law under the Trump administration that wraps up citizens and noncitizens alike “continues to be a real danger.”

“We’re just continuing to get reports of people in New Jersey who are being just rounded up,” Kim said. “And just across this country, we’re seeing reports of U.S. citizens getting brought into this and there’s been no actions that I’ve seen from this administration after what we’ve been pushing for in terms of transparency and accountability, no actions that I’ve seen in which they’re trying to rein this in or trying to change some of those practices.”

Two Democrats — Rep. Robert Garcia of California, ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, ranking member on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations — asked the Department of Homeland Security in an Oct. 20 letter for the total number of U.S. citizens detained and a list of all U.S. citizens held for more than 24 hours.

“The impact of these arrests has not been evenly distributed across the country, and cities like Chicago, Portland, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have been targeted heavily by ICE and CBP,” Garcia and Blumenthal wrote, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. “Troublingly, the pattern of U.S. Citizen arrests coincides with an alarming increase in racial profiling — particularly of Latinos — which has been well documented in Los Angeles.”

In a separate effort, Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, and Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, ranking member on the panel’s Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement, wrote to the Trump administration in an Oct. 20 letter demanding answers on numbers and a potential change in policy.

“DHS and ICE continue to wrongfully detain U.S. citizens — sometimes with violent force — while failing to investigate these cases with the urgency and care required,” the letter states.

A report last month from investigative news outlet ProPublica created an unofficial tally and found more than 170 incidents of agents holding U.S. citizens against their will in the first nine months of the Trump administration.

Several Democrats said they are frustrated by the Trump administration’s intransigence in not being forthcoming with the information as reports of wrongful dentition continue to intensify, despite efforts in outreach to the Department of Homeland Security.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the Trump administration is “virtually unresponsive” to inquiries about its efforts to limit wrongful detention or keep track of the tally.

Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he has received no indication the Trump administration has sought to monitor wrongful detention, and Democrats are “still waiting to hear back” on inquiries.

DHS, when asked about the issue, responded with an email that said the department “responds to official correspondence through official channels.”

“DHS does NOT arrest and deport U.S. citizens,” the department email said. “This garbage is contributing to our law enforcement officers facing a 1,000% increase in assaults and 8,000% increase in death threats against them. Democrats should get back to Washington, do their jobs, and reopen the government.”

Concerns over wrongful detention are part of broader criticisms of the Trump administration’s use of force in its immigration enforcement, including the deployment of the National Guard to assist in enforcement despite objections from local leaders and the use of racial profiling when arresting migrants allegedly in the United States unlawfully.

Alabama lawsuit

One high-profile lawsuit on wrongful detention of an Alabama construction worker who says he was detained on two separate occasions despite showing a valid ID continues to unfold.

Attorneys representing Leonardo Garcia Venegas, the Baldwin County, Ala.-based American citizen and construction worker, have asked the judge for a ruling that would limit certain immigration enforcement actions within the judge’s jurisdiction as the case moves forward.

“The government can’t treat innocent American citizens (and other lawful residents) like criminals just for going to work,” the filing says. “The Fourth Amendment, and federal regulations that restrict immigration officers’ search-and-seizure powers, demand better.”

Among the limits sought in the brief are restrictions on searching nonpublic areas of construction sites without a warrant and detaining workers even after they show evidence of lawful presence in the United States, such as a Real ID.

The litigation, which seeks class-action certification in addition to damages to Garcia Venegas for violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, is currently before the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Alabama.

Garcia Venegas’ lawsuit states the first incident of detention took place on May 21 after he got within 25 feet of immigration officers while trying to film on his iPhone the arrest of his brother, who is undocumented. The second incident took place on June 12 when immigration officials removed Garcia Venegas from his worksite and detained him for about 20 to 30 minutes even after he showed his Real ID, the lawsuit says.

DHS defended its actions against Garcia Venegas in a fact sheet delivered to the media upon the publication of an article on him in The New York Times.

“During a targeted worksite operation, Garcia Venegas attempted to obstruct and prevent the lawful arrest of an illegal alien,” the fact sheet says. “He physically got in between agents and the subject they were attempting to arrest and refused to comply with numerous verbal commands. Anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties, including U.S. citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest.”

Maria Greeley, a U.S. citizen born in Illinois, was confronted earlier this month in Chicago by three federal agents outside her workplace who “restrained her, placing her hands behind her back and securing them with zip ties,” even though she was able to produce a passport showing U.S. citizenship, according to an article last month in Newsweek.

The agents, Greeley said, dispute the authenticity of her passport on the basis she “doesn’t look like” the family name on her passport, the report says.

Republican response

Senate Republicans shrugged off reports of wrongful detention of U.S. citizens as overblown and the unfortunate consequence of needed efforts for immigration enforcement after President Joe Biden oversaw the admission of tens of millions of migrants into the United States.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., completely discounted the idea that U.S. citizens were caught up in immigration enforcement when asked if he was concerned about the developments.

In response to a question about Garcia Venegas, who is a constituent of Tuberville in Alabama, as an example of wrongful detention of a U.S. citizen, Tuberville professed he “hadn’t heard about it.”

Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, a Republican and member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, downplayed the arrests as an unavoidable consequence of law enforcement.

“All I would say is that it’s not uncommon to have a situation where there’s an arrest and people are actually picked up and within hours, or within 24 hours, they determine, hey, that this person’s not actually either a suspect, or this person is actually legally present,” Lankford said.

Lankford also questioned whether similar numbers of wrongful arrests are present in other law enforcement activities, or if the number of wrongful detentions in immigration enforcement were any different during the Biden and Obama administrations.

GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, also a member of the Senate Homeland Security panel, blamed the Biden administration and the media for creating the environment leading to incidents of wrongful detention in immigration enforcement.

“That’s because the Biden administration created such an enormous mess and you guys didn’t report on that,” Johnson said. “So it’s not going to be perfect trying to clean up an enormous mess started by the Biden administration. It’s regrettable.”

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, another Republican committee member, said he had greater concern with hamstringing immigration enforcement efforts as opposed to wrongful dentition.

“I think no one wants a U.S. citizen to be improperly detained,” Scott said. “So I don’t want that to happen, but I want ICE to do their job and get rid of all the criminals and terrorists and the people selling drugs to our kids.”

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