More Than 170 US Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents, Some Abused or Detained for Days: ProPublica

More than 170 US citizens have been detained by immigration agents against their will since President Donald Trump returned to office in January, according to a new investigation by ProPublica.

The reporters examined every publicly available case they could find in which citizens were detained by immigration officers.

"Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, and shot by immigration agents," they wrote in the report published Thursday. "They've had their necks kneeled on. They've been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched."

"About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers or loved ones," continued the report.

The findings fly in the face of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's recent assertion, in a ruling that allowed the Trump administration to use racial profiling to carry out its mass deportation agenda in Los Angeles, that "if the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a US citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go."

Video evidence from Los Angeles has shown immigration officials carrying out what appear to be large, indiscriminate roundups of random groups of Latino people.

Meanwhile, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who has been at the helm of Trump's "Operation Midway Blitz" in Chicago, has acknowledged in an interview with a local news station that immigration enforcement decides whether to detain people based on "how they look," and suggested that the white reporter interviewing him would be less likely to be detained.

ProPublica's report bolsters the accusation that the administration is carrying out explicit racial profiling. The investigation found more than 50 Americans who were held after agents questioned their citizenship, almost all of whom were Latino.

And while immigration officials are allowed to arrest citizens who obstruct their operations or assault officers, it found that the 130 cases in which Americans were accused of doing so "often wilted under scrutiny." In nearly 50, it said, charges were never filed or the cases were dismissed, while only a small number have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors.

Citizens who have been detained have often faced severe mistreatment at the hands of officers:

Among the detentions in which allegations have not stuck, masked agents pointed a gun at, pepper sprayed, and punched a young man who had filmed them searching for his relative.

In another, agents knocked over and then tackled a 79-year-old car wash owner, pressing their knees into his neck and back. His lawyer said he was held for 12 hours and wasn't given medical attention despite having broken ribs in the incident and having recently had heart surgery.

In a third case, agents grabbed and handcuffed a woman on her way to work who was caught up in a chaotic raid on street vendors. In a complaint filed against the government, she described being held for more than two days, without being allowed to contact the outside world for much of that time. (The Supreme Court has ruled that two days is generally the longest federal officials can hold Americans without charges.)

The investigation also found that at least 20 of the detained US citizens were children, including two with cancer. Another four were held, with their undocumented mother, for weeks without access to a lawyer. They were released following the intervention of Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), but still remain without their mother, who has not been accused of a crime.

In many cases, agents were found to have ignored proof of citizenship. In one case, they tackled an Alabama construction worker, Leonardo Garcia Venegas, to the ground even as he shouted that he was a citizen. When officers took out his REAL ID, which Alabama only issues to US citizens, they dismissed it as fake and held Garcia in handcuffs for over an hour. Agents later detained him a second time and dismissed his REAL ID again, while also holding two other workers with legal status.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called ProPublica's report "absolutely shocking."

"ICE does not have the authority to detain US citizens during immigration enforcement—full stop," she said. "The Trump administration is out of control, violating the rights of American citizens. They must be held accountable."

ProPublica's investigation focused on the detention of US citizens, but Kavanaugh's contention that legal immigrants are also "promptly released" is also flagrantly untrue. While there has not been a comprehensive effort to aggregate the number of green-card or visa holders detained or deported, there have been numerous documented cases of them falling into the grasp of immigration enforcement without any clear justification.

Earlier this week, the BBC reported that 48-year-old Paramjit Singh, a green-card holder who has a brain tumor and a heart condition, has been in ICE detention for over two months and has been denied the medical care he needs, despite there being no active cases against him. Another green-card holder in Kentucky, Vicente Castillo Flores, who has lived in the US for over 30 years, was detained by ICE earlier this month at a toll booth despite showing agents his work visa. According to Newsweek, the agency has not provided a reason for why he was detained despite his legal status.

The ProPublica reporters noted that their investigation was undertaken because "the government does not track how often immigration agents hold Americans." They said the number of US citizens held in detention was likely even higher than what they reported.

Their report is the latest in a long line of reports that have revealed an extraordinary lack of accountability and transparency for ICE and Trump's immigration enforcement agenda, which has mainly gone after people without criminal records despite Trump's claims to the contrary.

Last month, an investigation from the Miami Herald found that over 1,000 detainees held at Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz' detention facility had mysteriously vanished, with no record of where they went, leading the Florida Immigrant Coalition to describe it as "an extrajudicial black site."

Three individuals have died in ICE custody just over the past two weeks, bringing the total number up to 23 this year, the highest number in 20 years.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called ProPublica's report "an outrage."

"Every single Republican needs to answer for this," she said. "We can't let this administration sweep this kind of gross abuse of power under the rug."