“It feels like there is nothing I can do to stop immigration agents from arresting me whenever they want,” Venegas said in a statement issued by his attorneys. “I just want to work in peace. The Constitution protects my ability to do that.”
An Alabama man has filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration’s immigration-enforcement policies, claiming that, despite being a U.S. citizen, he has been twice detained in raids.
According to The Guardian, the proposed class-action lawsuit was filed earlier this week on behalf of lead plaintiff Leo Garcia Venegas, a concrete worker. The lawsuit demands an end to what Venegas’s attorneys call “unconstitutional and illegal immigration enforcement tactics.” He is being represented by attorneys from the public-interest law firm Institute for Justice.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has since responded to the lawsuit. In the Trump administration’s characteristically bombast rhetoric, an agency spokesperson said that the claim amounts to little more than “race-baiting opportunism.”
“DHS law enforcement uses ‘reasonable suspicion’ to make arrests,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the US – NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.”
“ICE does NOT arrest or deport U.S. citizens,” McLaughlin added. “Any U.S. citizens arrested are because of obstructing or assaulting law enforcement.”
McLaughlin did not attempt to offer any explanation as to why Venegas, a U.S. citizen, has been detained twice for alleged immigration violations he could not have committed.
Since the beginning of the President Donald Trump’s second term, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has increasingly relied on armed, often-warrantless raids, which resulted in the arrest and temporary detention of citizens and legal residents.
The Department of Homeland Security, the lawsuit alleges, “authorizes these armed raids based on the general assumption that certain groups of people in the [construction] industry, including Latinos, are likely illegal immigrants.”
“Once immigration officers are on a site, they preemptively seize everybody they think looks undocumented,” the lawsuit alleges.
Venegas, for instance, was detained in a May raid. Footage captured by one of his coworkers shows him being wrestled to the ground by immigration agents; throughout the confrontation, Venegas repeatedly insisted that he is a U.S. citizen. Less than a month later, Venegas was detained at another construction site.
“It feels like there is nothing I can do to stop immigration agents from arresting me whenever they want,” Venegas said in a statement issued by his attorneys. “I just want to work in peace. The Constitution protects my ability to do that.”
The Guardian reports that, during both arrests, Venegas showed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents his Alabama-issued REAL ID, a document that is only issued to citizens and legal residents. His identity card was almost dismissed out-of-hand as “fake.”
“Immigration officers are not above the law,” Institute for Justice attorney Jaba Tsitsuashvili said. “Leo is a hard-working American citizen standing up for everyone’s right to work without being detained merely for the way they look or the job that they do.”
Sources
US-born citizen sues after twice being arrested by immigration agents
US citizen sues after twice being detained by immigration agents
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