He wasn’t surprised this month when immigration officials pulled American citizen Leonardo Garcia Venegas from his car and shackled him. he wasn’t scared.
he was tired.
As ProPublica detailed last fall, he had already been detained twice.
A year ago, Garcia Venegas was filming his brother’s arrest during a raid on a construction site on the Alabama coast when he was tackled by agents who ignored his pleas that he was a citizen. A few weeks later, a police officer entered the home Garcia Venegas was building and refused to trust Garcia, now 26, with his Alabama Real ID, which only citizens and legal residents can obtain.
The video of the incident went viral. He appeared before Congress. He also has a pending lawsuit against the Trump administration.
However, the level of attention has not changed much. On May 2nd, investigators tracked him to his home. They again didn’t believe his claims of citizenship or the REAL ID he tried to show again.
Now, after this latest detention, Garcia Venegas sounds depressed.
“Honestly, I feel terrible,” Garcia Venegas told ProPublica. Wondering when the same thing will happen again weighs heavily on your mind, leading to stress and depression. “I drive to work every morning, knowing that I could be pulled over again at any time.”
Garcia Venegas, a US citizen, was recently detained by immigration authorities for the third time. Joanna Shan/ProPublica
While immigration sweeps have faded from the headlines, the recent case of Garcia Venegas highlights how the wrongful detention of Americans continues despite Congressional investigations and denials from top immigration officials.
Days after Garcia Venegas’ latest detention, masked agents attacked an American teenager in the Bronx. When they finally realized he was a civilian, they left him bloodied and bruised in a strange area.
The same week that both nationals were detained, government officials spoke on a panel at the Border Patrol Conference in Phoenix, downplaying and denying that the nationals had been wrongly detained. A recording of the conference was shared with ProPublica.
“Since the beginning of this administration, we have never had an American citizen arrested on false identification that showed they were actually a U.S. citizen when they thought they were an illegal alien,” said Matthew Elliston, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “That never happened.”
On a separate panel, outgoing ICE Director Todd Lyons acknowledged that immigration agents sometimes detain American citizens in cases where they allegedly “interfered with law enforcement.” He also said the arrests acted as a “deterrent”.
As ProPublica and others have reported, citizens, including Garcia Venegas, who are accused of assaulting police officers are not necessarily charged with assault. Video footage often contradicts the Department of Homeland Security’s claims that its personnel were attacked.
In response to questions from ProPublica, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement that despite being shackled, Garcia Venegas was “not in custody.” The statement continued: “ICE conducted a routine vehicle stop on a vehicle registered as an illegal alien. After Mr. Venegas’ identity was determined, he was released.” DHS also said the Bronx boy was “not arrested and was briefly detained.”
“We are not mistakenly arresting American citizens; DHS’s enforcement efforts are highly targeted,” the agency said in a statement.
However, it is unclear what, if any, agents used in García Venegas’ repeated detentions.
Garcia Venegas said investigators at the scene and local police said the most recent arrest was because he was driving a car registered to his brother.
Immigration officers and local police shackled by Garcia Venegas. Photo courtesy of Leonardo Garcia Venegas.
“The officers told me that until I registered the license plate in my name, I risked being stopped again,” Garcia Venegas said in a recently filed lawsuit. “But the officers could have immediately known that I was not my brother just by looking at the Real ID that was in my hand when they pulled me out of the truck and pushed me to the ground.”
The Garcia Venegas case exemplifies the hallmarks of what has come to be known as the “Kavanaugh stop.” Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh wrote in a lawsuit last fall that these stops allow officers to stop people based on their “apparent ethnicity” (Garcia Venegas is Latino), occupation (he works in construction), language (he primarily speaks Spanish), and other factors.
Kavanaugh said Americans need not worry. The agent would establish citizenship and “immediately release the person.” (In a subsequent lawsuit on a different issue, Kavanaugh added a footnote stating that “police officers may not conduct immigration searches or arrests based on race or ethnicity.”)
In a recent game, Garcia Venegas was sent off after about 15 minutes. But the aftermath is far from over.
Even though Garcia Venegas was born in Florida and graduated from high school in the same county where he remains in custody, he sometimes wonders whether he should pick him up and move to his family’s home in Mexico.
“I just want to live in peace,” he said.
When Garcia Venegas filed a federal lawsuit against the government last fall, he sought more than compensation. He has urged law enforcement authorities to stop conducting “unconstitutional” raids in his area. The government told the court that the immigration sweeps were “based on reasonable suspicion, probable cause, and the Constitution.”
ProPublica continues to track U.S. citizens in immigration custody. Do you have information about how immigration officials treat U.S. citizens and children during enforcement actions? Submit a tip [email protected] or Signal to Nicole Foy.27 at.
After García Venegas was detained for the third time, his lawyers rushed to update the case with details of his latest detention. But government lawyers argue that Garcia Venegas’ case remains without merit.
Garcia Venegas also filed a separate claim for damages against the government last fall. He received a non-explanatory denial from ICE in mid-April. The third detention took place about two weeks later.
At a Border Patrol conference this month, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott was asked about ProPublica’s reporting on national detentions and the agency’s response.
“We’re not going to do anything to avoid arresting American citizens,” he said. “Because we’re going to arrest criminals, of course.”
