Tag Archives: ICE

Boing Boing: American fascism: ICE arrests U.S. citizen, then tells him to “shave your beard”

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You know you’ve fallen into fascist territory when ICE agents arrest a U.S. citizen who has no criminal record and then tell him to shave his beard. Which is what happened to a 33-year-old Houston man whose looks got him arrested and detained.

Miguel Ponce Jr, born in Texas, was on his way to work when Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents pulled him over. Even after showing his valid ID and explaining that he was an American citizen with a clean record, he was hauled away. The government goons handcuffed him and detained him at “another location” for hours.

“I pretty much felt kidnapped,” he told KHOU via Newsweek. “[They] told me I have a deportation order, put me in handcuffs, and took me to another location.”

No amount of explaining how he was born in College Station and had never been arrested penetrated these ICE agents — who did not have a warrant. Insisting that he looked like a violent criminal on their wanted list, they continued to interrogate him. Until, that is, he finally showed them his tattoos — which did not match those of the suspect.

That’s when the incompetent agents sent him home, not with an apology but with some strong advice: “They said: ‘Shave your beard off so we won’t mistake you again,'” Ponce recounted. When MAGA talks about their freedoms, choosing how to look has apparently been removed from the list.

From Newsweek:

A man says he was left shocked and offended after immigration agents allegedly asked him to shave off his beard after a case of mistaken identity, a request he found both humiliating and unjustified.

“I’ll never shave my beard, that was disrespectful, the audacity,” Ponce told Newsweek in an exclusive statement.

After presenting his ID, Ponce was asked to exit his vehicle. Despite repeatedly stating that he was a U.S. citizen, he says the agents did not produce a warrant. Instead, they showed him a photograph of someone they claimed he resembled.

Ponce was handcuffed and held for approximately 90 minutes to two hours, during which time he says he was repeatedly dismissed when insisting they had the wrong person. …

“The agents seemed to think it was a game, telling me that multiple people use my social security number, and when I asked if they could show me proof, they just changed the subject,” Ponce said. “I kept telling them I’m not who they want, they just said, ‘just ’cause you keep saying it doesn’t make it true.'”

American fascism: ICE arrests U.S. citizen, then tells him to “shave your beard”
U.S. inches further into fascism as ICE arrests a Texas-born, U.S. citizen, then tell him to “shave your beard”
American fascism: ICE arrests U.S. citizen, then tells him to “shave your beard”

Fox News: MI Dems seek to prosecute mask-wearing ICE

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A Michigan Democratic effort would open up ICE agents to state prosecution if they conduct immigration enforcement operations while wearing masks that conceal their identity.

…

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Betsy Coffia, D-Traverse City, said Friday ICE’s masking-up “mirror the tactics of secret police in authoritarian regimes and strays from the norms that define legitimate local law enforcement.”

“It confuses and frightens communities,” she said. “Those who protect and serve our community should not do so behind a concealed identity.”

A banner on the dais from which Coffia announced the bill read, “Justice needs no masks.”

State Rep. Noah Arbit, D-West Bloomfield, added his name as a co-sponsor and said in a statement when a person is unable to discern whether someone apprehending them is a government authority or not, it “shreds the rule of law.”

“That is why the Trump administration and the Republican Party are the most pro-crime administration and political party that we have ever seen,” Arbit said.

Attorney General Dana Nessel, who was one of several state prosecutors to demand Congress pass similar legislation at the federal level, also threw her support behind the bill.

“Imagine a set of circumstances where somebody might be a witness to a serious crime and that defendant has some friends go out and literally just mask up and go apprehend somebody at a courthouse,” Nessel told the Traverse City NBC affiliate.

…

Nessel also lent her name to an amicus brief this month supporting a case brought against ICE over tactics used during its raids in Los Angeles.

“When masked, heavily armed federal agents operate with no identification, they threaten public safety and erode public trust,” Nessel said in the brief.

…

MI Dems seek to prosecute mask-wearing ICE, after state instituted $500 fine for being maskless during COVID
A new Michigan bill would allow state prosecution of ICE agents wearing masks during immigration enforcement, while Republicans call it an attack on law enforcement.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mi-dems-seek-prosecute-mask-wearing-ice-after-state-instituted-500-fine-being-maskless-during-covid

His Name Is Jesus. He’s a Carpenter. ICE Arrested Him.

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Seriously.

Jesus Teran fled persecution in Venezuela, seeking asylum in the United States in 2021 and joining his family in Imperial, Pennsylvania, half an hour outside Pittsburgh. He was living a version of the American Dream. Beloved by his community, he gave food to the needy, and when they created a communal garden to forge ties between a mostly white church and his more Latino one, Jesus was there, tilling the ground, repairing a faulty tiller, and watering the plants twice a week, according to the Observer-Reporter, a local paper.

Jesus, 35, trained in Venezuela to be a civil engineer. But he lacked the credentials or English skills to pursue that profession in the United States. So he made do by working at convenience stores and delivering with DoorDash. He did this all while learning English, his former teacher Barbara Hopkins told me.

It seemed his hard work was paying off when he was accepted into the carpenters apprenticeship program at the KML Carpenters Training Center in the winter of 2024. The promise of working construction wasn’t as alluring as being an engineer, but it was a step up the ladder. His family was elated.

Then, this year, Jesus’s life was thrown into chaos. On July 8, he went for a customary check-in at the ICE Pittsburgh field office. But he was detained and sent to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Phillipsburg, three hours away from where the family lives.

Jesus’s detention resembles thousands of other stories that are quickly defining American society in the age of Trump deportations. It has shaken his church community and inspired local leaders, union representatives, and Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh retired Bishop David Zubik to write more than twenty letters on his behalf.

“It’s been a heartbreaking experience. He’s been faithfully appearing at ICE appointments for more than four years, he was following the protocols of ICE, he was complying with everything he’s supposed to do. All of a sudden, he’s detained,” said Rev. Jay Donahue of St. Oscar Romero Parish, where Jesus’s family are members. “Jesus is not someone who should be subjected to this undignified experience that he’s going through. It’s a shame the way they are treating him; it is inhumane. It’s been inspiring to see the community rally around Jesus and to recognize what he means to our community.”

Jesus was denied entry into the United States in 2015, before successfully entering six years later. Still, that previous attempt to enter reduces the chances that his asylum claim would be successful. Further, a successful asylum process can take years.

Charles Kuck, a top immigration lawyer, said that even if Jesus’s asylum claim were denied during the Biden administration, it wasn’t a guarantee that he would have to be immediately removed. There are cases where people receive a withholding of removal, Kuck explained, “when they don’t want to deport you, if you’re a good person.”

Jesus’s family declined multiple requests to speak for this story, so additional details about his case are difficult to glean. But what I discovered when talking to friends, colleagues, and even his former teachers ….

His Name Is Jesus. He’s a Carpenter. ICE Arrested Him.
Seriously.

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/his-name-is-jesus-carpenter-arrested-ice-venezuela-pennsylvania-immigration

Global News: 18-year-old detained by ICE told he had no rights, despite U.S. citizenship

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A high school senior who was detained by ICE in Florida in May while his mother was driving him and two of his teenage colleagues to work is speaking out about the violent altercation in which he was told — despite being an American citizen — that he had no rights.

Footage of 18-year-old Kenny Laynez’s violent arrest, reportedly captured on his cellphone, shows an officer telling him, “You got no rights here. You’re an amigo, brother.”

Laynez was born and raised in the United States.

Speaking to CBS News, he said, “It hurts me, hearing them saying that I have no rights here because I look like, um, you know, Hispanic, I’m Hispanic.”

According to Laynez, the car was pulled over because there were too many passengers riding in the front seat, and two passengers, his co-workers, were undocumented, he said.

Footage shows officers using a Taser while detaining the teens, both of whom Laynez says he has not been able to contact since.

“We’re not resisting. We’re not committing any crime to, you know, run away,” Laynez said, recalling the incident.

The high schooler’s phone kept recording after he had been arrested and picked up a conversation between officers where they were discussing shooting the detainees.

“They’re starting to resist more. We’re gonna end up shooting some of them,” one officer says to another.

“Just remember, you can smell that too with a $30,000 bonus,” another officer responded.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told CBS in a statement that Laynez and his co-workers “resisted arrest” and claimed that immigration agents are experiencing a rise in assaults on the job.

The statement did not mention that a U.S. citizen had been detained, the outlet added.

Laynez recalled events as Florida prepares to deploy 1,800 more law enforcement officers to execute immigration raids ordered by the Trump administration.

Mariana Blanco, the director at the Guatemalan Maya Center, an advocacy group opposing Florida’s pursuit of immigrants, told CBS that, “laws are just… they’re no longer being respected.

“Deputizing these agents so quickly it is going to bring severe consequences,” she added.

Laynez is just one of a handful of young people to be arrested by ICE, seemingly without cause.

In June, students and staff at a high school in Massachusetts staged a post-graduation protest after U.S. immigration authorities detained a pupil who was scheduled to perform with the school’s band during the ceremony.

Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, 18, was driving his father’s car to volleyball practice the day before the ceremony with some of his teammates when he was pulled over by immigration authorities.

Officers said they were looking for Gomes Da Silva’s father, who, according to Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, is residing illegally in the U.S.

During the stop, authorities determined that Gomes Da Silva was also unlawfully in the country and detained him. According to his friends, Gomes Da Silva was born in Brazil but has attended Milford Public Schools in the Boston area since the age of six.

The teen’s arrest coincided with the final day of a far-reaching, month-long illegal immigration clampdown in Massachusetts, coined Operation Patriot, that saw nearly 1,500 people deemed “criminal aliens” detained.

Gomes Da Silva returned home after several days in ICE detainment after a judge released him on a $2,000 bond.

18-year-old detained by ICE told he had no rights, despite U.S. citizenship – National | Globalnews.ca
Footage of 18-year-old Kenny Laynez’s violent arrest, reportedly captured on his phone, shows an officer telling him, “You got no rights here. You’re an amigo, brother.”
18-year-old detained by ICE told he had no rights, despite U.S. citizenship

CNN: A Marine veteran’s wife, detained by ICE while still breastfeeding, has been released

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A Marine Corps veteran’s wife has been released from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention following advocacy from Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who backs President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown.

Until this week, Mexican national Paola Clouatre had been one of tens of thousands of people in ICE custody as the Trump administration continues to press immigration officers to arrest 3,000 people a day suspected of being in the US illegally.

Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Kennedy’s office put in a request Friday for the Department of Homeland Security to release her after a judge halted her deportation order earlier that week. By Monday, she was out of a remote ICE detention center in north Louisiana and home in Baton Rouge with her veteran husband, Adrian Clouatre, and their two young children.

Kennedy’s constituent services representative, Christy Tate, congratulated Adrian Clouatre on his wife’s release and thanked him for his military service. “I am so happy for you and your family,” Tate wrote in an email to Adrian Clouatre. “God is truly great!”

Kennedy’s office proved “instrumental” in engaging with the Department of Homeland Security, according to Carey Holliday, the family’s attorney. Kennedy’s office did not provide further comment.

Another Louisiana Republican, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, also intervened recently with the Department of Homeland Security to secure the release of an Iranian mother from ICE detention following widespread outcry. The woman has lived for decades in New Orleans.

Kennedy has generally been a staunch supporter of Trump’s immigration policies.

“Illegal immigration is illegal – duh,” Kennedy posted on his Facebook page on July 17, amid a series of recent media appearances decrying efforts to prevent ICE officers from making arrests. In April, however, he criticized the Trump administration for mistakenly deporting a Maryland man.

Senator’s office requests mother’s release from ICE custody

The Department of Homeland Security previously told The AP it considered Clouatre to be “illegally” in the country.

An email chain shared by Adrian Clouatre shows that the family’s attorney reached out to Kennedy’s office in early June after Paola Clouatre was detained in late May.

Tate received Paola Clouatre’s court documents by early July and said she then contacted ICE, according to the email exchange.

On July 23, an immigration judge halted Paola Clouatre’s deportation order. After Adrian Clouatre notified Kennedy’s office, Tate said she “sent the request to release” Paola Clouatre to DHS and shared a copy of the judge’s motion with the agency, emails show.

In an email several days later, Tate said that ICE told her it “continues to make custody determinations on a case-by-case basis based on the specific circumstances of each case” and had received the judge’s decision from Kennedy’s office “for consideration.”

The next working day, Paola Clouatre was released from custody.

“We will continue to keep you, your family and others that are experiencing the same issues in our prayers,” Tate said in an email to Adrian Clouatre. “If you need our assistance in the future, please contact us.”

Back with her children

Paola Clouatre had been detained by ICE officers on May 27 during an appointment related to her green card application.

She had entered the country as a minor with her mother from Mexico more than a decade ago and was legally processed while seeking asylum, she, her husband and her attorney say. But Clouatre’s mother later failed to show up for a court date, leading a judge to issue a deportation order against Paola Clouatre in 2018, though by then she had become estranged from her mother and was homeless.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Clouatre’s release.

Adrian Clouatre said he wished the agency would “actually look at the circumstances” before detaining people like his wife. “It shouldn’t just be like a blanket ‘Oh, they’re illegal, throw them in ICE detention.’”

Reunited with her breastfeeding infant daughter and able to snuggle with her toddler son, Paola Clouatre told AP she feels like a mother again.

“I was feeling bad,” she said of detention. “I was feeling like I failed my kids.”

It will likely be a multiyear court process before Paola Clouatre’s immigration court proceedings are formally closed, but things look promising, and she should be able to obtain her green card eventually, her attorney said.

For now, she’s wearing an ankle monitor, but still able to pick up life where she left off, her husband says. The day of her arrest in New Orleans, the couple had planned to sample some of the city’s famed French pastries known as beignets and her husband says they’ll finally get that chance again: “We’re going to make that day up.”

A Marine veteran’s wife, detained by ICE while still breastfeeding, has been released | CNN
A Marine Corps veteran’s wife has been released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention following advocacy from Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who backs President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/29/us/mother-released-ice-marine-veteran-husband

Inquisitr: ‘Had to Sleep on the Floor’—Honduran Woman Detained by ICE During Routine Check-In Describes ‘Inhumane’ Conditions in U.S. Custody

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There were no beds and very little food for 30 women.

A Honduran woman, Gladis Yolanda Chavez Pineda, was detained by ICE when she went in for her immigration check-in last month. She did not know that going for a normal immigration check would land her up in inhumane conditions at the Broadview processing center.

She spent 4 days in the center and then transferred to the Kentucky correctional facility. Chavez Pineda who’s also an organizer with the Organized Communities Against Deportations revealed the details about her stay. She was among the 30 women who were held there. They did not have blankets, beds, or enough food.

They did not even know what was going to happen to them next, or where they would be taken next. She was arrested on June 4 along with ten other immigrants arrested that day by ICE in the South Loop.

She noted that she got a text message that asked her to report for the immigration check-in at the Michigan Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office. This way they can monitor those with deportation status change while not taking them into custody.

The moment she arrived there, she was escorted by the ICE agents regarding her new deportation orders. Despite showing the paperwork along with her two attorneys, she was arrested. She has been living in the US for ten years now, and her case is still pending. For now, she has a temporary stay of removal by the appeals council.

She argued that if she applied for her case legally, she should not get detained. She has the work permit, social security number and pays taxes. She was detained for a month in the Grayson County Jail.

There she had to stay with twenty women, and there were just ten beds for them to share. The conditions were harsh with bright light, loud noises, and no access to medical care. They could not sleep or feel safe.

The nights she spent there, she was worried about her three kids; she never wanted them to experience this. Even when she was deported on July 13, she was in handcuffs and ankle-chained till she reached Honduras.

‘Had to Sleep on the Floor’—Honduran Woman Detained by ICE During Routine Check-In Describes ‘Inhumane’ Conditions in U.S. Custody
Gladis Yolanda Chavez Pineda was detained and arrested by ICE when she went for an immigration check-in. She was detained in inhumane conditions.

USA Today: ICE deported teenagers and children in immigration raids. Here are their stories.

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Several students who attended K-12 schools in the United States last year won’t return this fall after ICE deported them to other countries.

An empty seat.

Martir Garcia Lara’s fourth-grade teacher and classmates went on with the school day in Torrance, California without him on May 29.

About 20 miles north of his fourth grade classroom, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and detained the boy and his father at their scheduled immigration hearing in Downtown Los Angeles.

The federal immigration enforcement agency, which under President Donald Trump has more aggressively deported undocumented immigrants, separated the young boy and his father for a time and took them to an immigration detention facility in Texas.

Garcia Lara and his father were reunited and deported to Honduras this summer.

Garcia Lara is one of at least five young children and teens who have been rounded up by ICE and deported from the United States with their parents since the start of Trump’s second presidential term. Many won’t return to their school campuses in the fall.

“Martir’s absence rippled beyond the school walls, touching the hearts of neighbors and strangers alike, who united in a shared hope for his safe return,” Sara Myers, a spokesperson for the Torrance Unified School District, told USA TODAY.

Trisha McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said his father Martir Garcia-Banegas, 50, illegally entered the United States in 2021 with his son from the Central American country and an immigration judge ordered them to “removed to Honduras” in Sept. 2022.

“They exhausted due process and had no legal remedies left to pursue,” McLaughlin wrote USA TODAY in an email.

The young boy is now in Honduras without his teacher, classmates and a brother who lives in Torrance.

“I was scared to come here,” Lara told a reporter at the California-based news station ABC7 in Spanish. “I want to see my friends again. All of my friends are there. I miss all my friends very much.”

Although no reported ICE deportations have taken place on school grounds, school administrators, teachers and students told USA TODAY that fear lingers for many immigrant students in anticipation of the new school year.

The Trump administration has ramped up immigration enforcement in the United States. A Reuters analysis of ICE and White House data shows the Trump administration has doubled the daily arrest rates compared to the last decade.

Trump recently signed the House and Senate backed “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which increases ICE funding by $75 billion to use to enforce immigration policy and arrest, detain and deport immigrants in the United States.

Although Trump has said he wants to remove immigrants from the country who entered illegally and committed violent crimes, many people without criminal records have also been arrested and deported, including school students who have been picked up along with or in lieu of their parents.

Abigail Jackson, a spokesperson for the White House, says the Trump administration’s immigration agencies are not targeting children in their raids. She called an insinuation that they are “a fake narrative when the truth tells a much different story.”

“In many of these examples, the children’s parents were illegally present in the country – some posing a risk to the communities they were illegally present in – and when they were going to be removed they chose to take their children with them,” Jackson said. “If you have a final deportation order, as many of these illegal immigrant parents did, you have no right to stay in the United States and should immediately self-deport.”

Parents can choose to leave their kids behind if they are arrested, detained and deported from the United States, she said.

Some advocates for immigrants in the United States dispute that claim. National Immigration Project executive director Sirine Shebaya said she’s aware of undocumented immigrant parents were not given the choice to leave their kids behind or opportunity to make arrangement for them to stay in the United States.

In several cases, ICE targeted parents when they attended routine immigration appointments, while traffic stops led to deportations of two high school students. School principals, teachers and classmates say their absence is sharply felt and other students are afraid they could be next.

Very long article, read the rest at the links below:

ICE deported teenagers and children in immigration raids. Here are their stories.
Several students who attended K-12 schools in the United States last year won’t return this fall after ICE deported them to other countries.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/07/27/ice-student-deportations-trump-school-communities/84190533007

ICE deported teenagers and children in immigration raids. Here are their stories.
Several students who attended K-12 schools in the United States last year won’t return this fall after ICE deported them to other countries.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-deported-teenagers-and-children-in-immigration-raids-here-are-their-stories/ar-AA1JndT7

Trump is the first AI slop president. That’s not good for democracy.

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The White House has become a superspreader of AI-generated videos.

Franklin Roosevelt mastered the use of radio. John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were top of the game on TV. And Donald Trump is the first AI slop president.

Since January, Trump’s administration has used artificial intelligence to churn out a steady stream of fake images on social media, from alligators in ICE hats to crying members of Congress,while the official White House account on X has used it to portray the president as Superman, the pope and a villain from “Star Wars.”

Earlier this week, Trump used his account on his personal social media platform, Truth Social, to share an AI-generated clip showing former President Barack Obama being forcibly detained by the FBI. As bizarre as it was, it fit in with his other nonsensical memes, which included various Democrats in orange prison jumpsuits as the “Shady Bunch” and a fake-looking video of a woman in a bikini catching a snake with her bare hands.

There’s a term for someone using social media this way that can’t be repeated in polite company, so let’s just call it slop-posting. It’s usually done by a 14-year-old boy, or someone who still acts like one, and it’s mostly just absurd or mildly offensive. It’s not harmless, necessarily, but it’s mostly just lame trolling.

To suggest that our President has the maturity of a 14-year-old boy is generous. Let’s not insult the kids, most of whom are more mature and better behaved than King Donald.

But when the president does it, it’s something else entirely. Even in the most harmless AI-generated memes, Trump is muddying the waters on what is real, encouraging his supporters to believe everything and nothing. Did a woman in a bikini really catch a snake? Is Obama really going to be arrested? To a Trump supporter steeped in these memes, the answer may not even matter.

…

Opinion | Trump is the first AI slop president. That’s not good for democracy.
The White House has become a superspreader of AI-generated videos.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-obama-arrest-ai-slop-video-truth-social-rcna221041

USA Today: The Trump administration is telling immigrants ‘Carry your papers.’ Here’s what to know.

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Papers, please!

Amid the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration, the nation’s immigration service is warning immigrants to carry their green card or visa at all times.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services posted the reminder July 23 on social media: “Always carry your alien registration documentation. Not having these when stopped by federal law enforcement can lead to a misdemeanor and fines.”

Here’s what immigrants – and American citizens – need to know.

‘Carry your papers’ law isn’t new

The law requiring lawful immigrants and foreign visitors to carry their immigration documents has been on the books for decades, dating to the 1950s.

The Immigration and Nationality Act states: “Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him.”

But the law had rarely been imposed before the Trump administration announced earlier this year that it would strictly enforce it.

The “carry your papers” portion fell out of use for cultural and historical reasons, said Michelle Lapointe, legal director of the nonprofit American Immigration Council.

In contrast to the Soviet bloc at the time the requirement was written, “We have never been a country where you have to produce evidence of citizenship on demand from law enforcement.”

In a “Know Your Rights” presentation, the ACLU cautions immigrants over age 18 to follow the law and “carry your papers with you at all times.”

“If you don’t have them,” the ACLU says, “tell the officer that you want to remain silent, or that you want to consult a lawyer before answering any questions.”

A ‘precious’ document at risk

Many immigrants preferred to hold their green card or visa in safe-keeping, because, like a passport, they are expensive and difficult to obtain.

Historically, it was “a little risky for people to carry these precious documents such as green card, because there is a hefty fee to replace it and they are at risk of not having proof of status – a precarious position to be in,” Lapointe said.

But as immigration enforcement has ramped up, the risks of not carrying legal documents have grown.

Failure to comply with the law can result in a $100 fine, or imprisonment of up to 30 days.

Immigration enforcement and ‘racial profiling’

U.S. citizens aren’t required to carry documents that prove their citizenship.

But in an environment of increasing immigration enforcement, Fernando Garcia, executive director of the nonprofit Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas, said he worries about U.S. citizens being targeted.

“With massive raids and mass deportation, this takes a new dimension,” he said. “How rapidly are we transitioning into a ‘show me your papers’ state?”

“The problem is there are a lot of people – Mexicans, or Central Americans – who are U.S. citizens who don’t have to carry anything, but they have the burden of proof based on racial profiling,” he said. “There are examples of U.S. citizens being arrested already, based on their appearance and their race.”

American citizens targeted by ICE

The Trump administration’s widening immigration crackdown has already netted American citizens.

In July, 18-year-old Kenny Laynez, an American citizen, was detained for six hours by Florida Highway Patrol and Border Patrol agents. He was later released.

Federal agents also detained a California man, Angel Pina, despite his U.S. citizenship in July. He was later released.

Elzon Limus, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen from Long Island, New York, decried his arrest by ICE agents in June, after he was released. In a video of the arrest, immigration agents demand Limus show ID, with one explaining he “looks like somebody we are looking for.”

In updated guidance, attorneys at the firm of Masuda, Funai, Eifert & Mitchell, which has offices in Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles, advise U.S. who are concerned about being stopped and questioned “to carry a U.S. passport card or a copy of their U.S. passport as evidence of U.S. citizenship.”

“Papers, please!” is so un-American. 🙁

The Trump administration is telling immigrants ‘Carry your papers.’ Here’s what to know.
Immigrants have long been required to carry ID proving they’re in the US legally, but the rule was not enforced. Until now.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/07/25/carry-your-papers-law-enforcement-immigrants-citizens/85374881007