Video from Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio, 18, puts fresh scrutiny on the harsh tactics used to reach the Trump administration’s ambitious enforcement targets
‘You’ve got no rights’: teenage US citizen records violent arrest by immigration officers – video
On the morning of 2 May, teenager Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio was driving to his landscaping job in North Palm Beach with his mother and two male friends when they were pulled over by the Florida highway patrol.
In one swift moment, a traffic stop turned into a violent arrest.
A highway patrol officer asked everyone in the van to identify themselves, then called for backup. Officers with US border patrol arrived on the scene.
Video footage of the incident captured by Laynez-Ambrosio, an 18-year-old US citizen, appears to show a group of officers in tactical gear working together to violently detain the three men*, two of whom are undocumented. They appear to use a stun gun on one man, put another in a chokehold and can be heard telling Laynez-Ambrosio: “You’ve got no rights here. You’re a migo, brother.” Afterward, agents can be heard bragging and making light of the arrests, calling the stun gun use “funny” and quipping: “You can smell that … $30,000 bonus.”
“The federal government has imposed quotas for the arrest of immigrants,” said Jack Scarola, an attorney who is advocating on behalf of Laynez-Ambrosio and working with the non-profit Guatemalan-Maya Center, which provided the footage to the Guardian. “Any time law enforcement is compelled to work towards a quota, it poses a significant risk to other rights.”
Chokeholds, stun guns and laughter
The incident unfolded at roughly 9am, when a highway patrol officer pulled over the company work van, driven byLaynez-Ambrosio’smother, and discovered that she had a suspended license. Laynez-Ambrosio said he is unsure why the van was pulled over, as his mother was driving below the speed limit.
Laynez-Ambrosio hadn’t intended to film the interaction – he already had his phone out to show his mom “a silly TikTok”, he said – but immediately clicked record when it became clear what was happening.
The arrest of an undocumented man in Florida, as caught on video by Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio on 2 May 2025. Photograph: Screengrab from video by Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio/Courtesy of the Guatemalan-Maya Center
The video begins after the van has been pulled over and the border patrol had arrived. A female officer can be heard asking, in Spanish, whether anyone is in the country illegally. One of Laynez-Ambrosio’s friends answers that he is undocumented. “That’s when they said, ‘OK, let’s go,’” Laynez-Ambrosio recalled.
Laynez-Ambrosio said things turned aggressive before the group even had a chance to exit the van. One of the officers “put his hand inside the window”, he said, “popped the door open, grabbed my friend by the neck and had him in a chokehold”.
Footage appears to show officers then reaching for Laynez-Ambrosio and his other friend as Laynez-Ambrosio can be heard protesting: “You can’t grab me like that.” Multiple officers can be seen pulling the other man from the van and telling him to “put your fucking head down”. The footage captures the sound of a stun gun as Laynez-Ambrosio’s friend cries out in pain and drops to the ground.
Laynez-Ambrosio said that his friend was not resisting, and that he didn’t speak English and didn’t understand the officer’s commands. “My friend didn’t do anything before they grabbed him,” he said.
Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio, 18, filmed his own arrest in Florida. Photograph: The Palm Beach Post/Reporter Valentina Palm
In the video, Laynez-Ambrosio can be heard repeatedly telling his friend, in Spanish, to not resist. “I wasn’t really worried about myself because I knew I was going to get out of the situation,” he said. “But I was worried about him. I could speak up for him but not fight back, because I would’ve made the situation worse.”
Laynez-Ambrosio can also be heard telling officers: “I was born and raised right here.” Still, he was pushed to the ground and says that an officer aimed a stun gun at him. He was subsequently arrested and held in a cell at a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) station for six hours.
Audio in the video catches the unidentified officers debriefing and appearing to make light of the stun gun use. “You’re funny, bro,” one officer can be overheard saying to another, followed by laughter.
Another officer says, “They’re starting to resist more now,” to which an officer replies: “We’re going to end up shooting some of them.”
Later in the footage, the officers move on to general celebration – “Goddamn! Woo! Nice!” – and talk of the potential bonus they’ll be getting: “Just remember, you can smell that [inaudible] $30,000 bonus.” It is unclear what bonus they are referring to. Donald Trump’s recent spending bill includes billions of additional dollars for Ice that could be spent on recruitment and retention tactics such as bonuses.
Laynez-Ambrosio said his two friends were eventually transferred to the Krome detention center in Miami. He believes they were released on bail and are awaiting a court hearing, but said it has been difficult to stay in touch with them.
Laynez-Ambrosio’s notice to appear in court confirms that the border patrol arrived on the scene, having been called in by the highway patrol. His other legal representative, Victoria Mesa-Estrada, also confirmed that border patrol officers transported the three men to the border patrol facility.
The Florida highway patrol, CBP, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
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Laynez-Ambrosio was charged with obstruction without violence and sentenced to 10 hours of community service and a four-hour anger management course. While in detention, he said, police threatened him with charges if he did not delete the video footage from his phone, but he refused.
Scarola, his lawyer, said the charges were retaliation for filming the incident. “Kenny was charged with filming [and was] alleged to have interfered with the activities of law enforcement,” he explained. “But there was no intended interference – merely the exercise of a right to record what was happening.”
In February, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, signed an agreement between the state and the Department of Homeland Security allowing Florida highway patrol troopers to be trained and approved by Ice to arrest and detain immigrants. While such agreements have been inked across the US, Florida has the largest concentration of these deals.
The arrests of 2 May 2025. Photograph: Screengrab from video by Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio/Courtesy of Guatemalan-Maya Center
Father Frank O’Loughlin, founder and executive director of the Guatemalan-Maya Center, the advocates for Laynez-Ambrosio, says the incident has further eroded trust between Florida’s immigrant community and the police. “This is a story about the corruption of law enforcement by Maga and the brutality of state and federal troopers – formerly public servants – towards nonviolent people,” he said.
Meanwhile, Laynez-Ambrosio is trying to recover from the ordeal, and hopes the footage raises awareness of how immigrants are being treated in the US. “It didn’t need to go down like that. If they knew that my people were undocumented, they could’ve just kindly taken them out of the car and arrested them,” he said. “It hurt me bad to see my friends like that. Because they’re just good people, trying to earn an honest living.”
The Guardian is granting anonymity to Laynez-Ambrosio’s mother and the men arrested in the footage to protect their privacy
Dashcam footage of a 22-year-old driver pulled over in a Jacksonville, Fla. traffic stop has left lots of viewers with questions about police and excessive force.
Video of a traffic stop in Jacksonville, Fla., has gone viral. And although the incident occurred nearly six months ago, thousands of outraged viewers are now raising questions about what they believe to be excessive force used on a young Black man.
According to an arrest report obtained by News4JAX, Will McNeil Jr. was pulled over just after 4:00 pm on February 19 because his car “did not have its headlights or tail lights illuminated in inclement weather.” The report reads that McNeil Jr. was not wearing his seat belt and became “verbally combative” with the officer when he was asked to show his identification.
But recently released dash cam video paints a different picture and has many on the internet seeking justice for the 22-year-old driver. The footage shows McNeil Jr. was wearing his seat belt at the time he was pulled over and asked officers to call their supervisor to explain why he was being held when there was no rain or fog at the time he was stopped.
According to First Coast News, officers reported giving McNeil Jr. several warnings that they would break his window if he did not step out of his car. Although those warnings cannot be heard in the video, officers can be seen breaking the driver’s side window and striking McNeil Jr. in the head several times before he was forcibly removed from his car and forced to the ground.
McNeil Jr. told News4JAX that the incident left him with several injuries, including a concussion.
“I suffered a chipped tooth; my tooth went through my lip, and they slammed me on the ground and on the concrete. I had to get nine stitches. I also had a concussion and now I suffer from short-term memory loss,” he said.
In a statement on X, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office acknowledged the incident and said they are conducting their own investigation into the events leading up to the young man’s arrest.
“We are aware of a video circulating on social media showing a traffic stop represented to be from February 19, 2025. We have launched an internal investigation into it and the circumstances surrounding this incident. We hold our officers to the highest standards and are committed to thoroughly determining exactly what occurred,” it reads.
But social media has been flooded with comments from people who believe the proof that the police department is in the wrong is in the video.
“You saw exactly what happened because it was completely recorded. Your own officers stated the reason for his arrest in the video, and he was not resisting. The force used was completely unnecessary. This was a blatant abuse of power. The City of Jacksonville should be ashamed,” wrote someone on X.
Attorney Ben Crump, who will be representing McNeil, told News4JAX that the video evidence is clear that the police were out of line, “It should be obvious to anyone watching this video that William McNeil wasn’t a threat to anyone. He was calmly exercising his constitutional rights, and they beat him for it.”
I am posting a different article on this kidnapping and disappearing of a long time resident and family man because the right wing media keeps telling us that they are detaining the worst of the worst, only deporting the dangerous criminals. The thug in charge of ICE Tom Homan keeps mumbling that anyone protesting is wanting rapist, arsonists, murders gang drug runners in your neighborhood. This man was a green card holder and a threat to know one. They way that ICE treated his elderly wife was horrific in itself. Hugs
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agent. Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images
An 82-year-old man in Pennsylvania was secretly deported to Guatemala after visiting an immigration office last month to replace his lost green card, according to his family, who said they have not heard from him since and were initially told he was dead.
According to Morning Call, which first reported the story, longtime Allentown resident Luis Leon – who was granted political asylum in the US in 1987 after being tortured under the regime of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet – lost his wallet containing the physical card that confirmed his legal residency. So he and his wife booked an appointment to get it replaced.
When he arrived at the office on 20 June, however, he was handcuffed by two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, who led him away from his wife without explanation, she said. She said she herself was kept in the building for 10 hours until relatives picked her up.
The family said they made efforts to find any information on his whereabouts but learned nothing.
Then, sometime after Leon was detained, a woman purporting to be an immigration lawyer called the family, they said, claiming she could help – but did not disclose how she knew about the case, or where Leon was.
On 9 July, according to Leon’s granddaughter, the same woman called them again, claiming Leon had died.
A week later, however, they discovered from a relative in Chile that Leon was alive after all – but now in a hospital in Guatemala, a country to which he has no connection.
According to Morning Call, the relative said Leon had first been sent to an immigration detention center in Minnesota before being deported to Guatemala – despite not appearing on any Ice detention deportation lists.
Ice on Monday evening denied the Morning Call story, calling it a hoax.
Morning Call claimed it repeatedly requested confirmation and details from Ice throughout its reporting. Morning Call also claimed it was introduced to the family during a Lehigh county courthouse protest over Ice’s operations there.
It noted the family ceased responding to its requests for clarification on Monday.
A recent supreme court decision ruled the Trump administration could deport immigrants to other countries beside their country of origin.
In his nearly 40 years living in the US, Leon spent his career working in a leather manufacturing plant, and raised a family. He had since retired.
He suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and a heart condition, according to his family, who said they are planning to fly to Guatemala to see him.
An Ice official told the Morning Call it was investigating the matter. The Guatemala Migration Institute denied that Leon was deported from the US to Guatemala.
Morning Call reported on Sunday that Leon was recovering from pneumonia in Guatemala, according to his family, and that he arrived in Guatemala City on 1 July. According to the family, reported Morning Call, his phone was taken away and Ice officers kept referring to him and other detainees as “Mario.”
I really like this scholar. He is not a preacher, he studies the bible for what it is and not what he wants it to be. He doesn’t tell you what to think or believe, he simply explains the texts and passages of the bible explaining what they mean as he does. Hugs
In the case of Saturday Night Fever, “[t]he use of disco-inflected classical music in the film represents the economic and social success to which Tony and his friends ultimately aspire,” argues McLeod. “The disco milieu represents one form of illusion—the illusion of power in the outside ‘real’ world that Tony imagines.”
Indeed, classical music represents an exotic world of sophistication, elitism, and wealth which, especially when merged with a homogeneous disco beat, becomes an enticing symbol of the unattainable, illusory, and artificial nature of Tony’s dreams.
Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven” makes its appearance when Tony and his friends arrive at the 2001 Oddyssey (sic) disco club.
“To some extent he is represented as the new heir to the cultural prestige of classical music,” writes McLeod of Tony’s appearance. The soundtrack, with its
seemingly contradictory and almost synthetically forced fusion of classical music and disco underlines the artificiality of his entrance and of the world into which he has crossed. It is likely no accident that the famous “fate” motive, heard here near the beginning of the movie, functions as a foreshadowing of the dramatic events that will soon unfold within this world.
“A Fifth of Beethoven” is easily the highest-profile instance of disco appropriation of classical music. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 is typically associated with notions of monumentality, heroism, fate, and relentless transcendence of the will. And while Beethoven’s version is about transcending humanity, Murphy’s is steeped in humanity, as it represents acceptance of common human desires—such as dancing—rather than superhuman transcendence of them.
The soundtrack also featured another instrumental disco–classical interpretation: David Shire’s “Night on Disco Mountain,” which adapts Mussorgsky’s orchestral tone poem Night on Bald Mountain (which is also the Chernabog segment in Disney’s Fantasia). “Night on Disco Mountain” is heard when Tony and his friend pretend to jump off the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.
“The faked suicides are symbolized by the ‘fake’ classical music,” writes McLeod.
Shire’s track adds another layer of grotesque ambient sounds to further heighten the atmosphere of chaos and alienation, producing what McLeod calls “an international and futuristic potpourri of sounds.”
“A Fifth of Beethoven” and “Night on Disco Mountain” weren’t isolated instances of classical–disco fusion. Wendy Carlos’s Switched-On Bach and Switched-On Brandenburgs recordings became instant commercial radio and dance hits. K-Tel Records initiated their popular Hooked on Classics series that combined classical music with elements of disco and pop music. This trend spawned a number of disco–classical albums such as Klassiks Go Disko, featuring “A Sixth of Tchaikovsky” and “Brahms’s Disco Dance No. 5,” and Saturday Night Fiedler, an album of disco arrangements by the Boston Pops.
“Many of classical music’s qualities, such as structural complexity and cultural prestige, were natural targets for simplification, reduction, and transmission to a mass audience,” argues McLeod. Artificiality is another common thread, as both genres thrive on the notion. “As in a discotheque,” he writes, “classical music is often enjoyed and appreciated in escapist settings by wealthy, well-dressed devotees.”
There are also similarities between classical and disco compositional style.
July 25, 1898 With 16,000 troops, the United States invaded Puerto Rico at Guánica, asserting that they were liberating the inhabitants from Spanish colonial rule, which had recently granted the island’s government limited atonomy. The island, as well as Cuba and the Philippines, were spoils of the Spanish-American War which ended the following month. Puerto Rico remains a U.S. commonwealth today. N.Y. 17th Volunteer Regiment marching through Puerto Rico Famed American poet Carl Sandburg saw active service in Puerto Rico, beginning with the invasion in Guánica. Sandburg wrote about these experiences in his book entitled “Always the Young Strangers” (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1953). More on the invasion
July 25, 1946 The first underwater atomic device was detonated at Bikini Atoll, one of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific. It was the second of two bombs, Able and Baker, that comprised Operation Crossroads; each weapon had a yield equivalent to 23,000 tons of TNT (23 kilotons).The U.S. Navy conducted the tests to determine the effect of such weapons on ships at sea. More than 130 newspaper, magazine and radio correspondents from seven nations were present for the tests. More on Operation Crossroads
July 25, 1947 The National Security Act of 1947 was passed by Congress, uniting the armed forces under control of the National Military Establishment, which soon became Defense, the only cabinet-level military department, in place of separate ones for War, Army and Navy. The law also created the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and gave statutory responsibility to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
July 25, 1963 The Limited Test Ban Treaty was initialed following 10 days of intense negotiations among the the U.S.S.R.*, U.S. and United Kingdom. The treaty prohibits nuclear weapons tests “or any other nuclear explosion” in the atmosphere, in outer space, or under water; it does not ban underground tests. The nuclear powers (only three then, nine today) accepted as a common goal “an end to the contamination of man’s environment by radioactive substances.” 185 countries have signed the treaty so far but Israel, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea never signed or later withdrew. * Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly referred to as the Soviet Union, included Russia and 14 countries and was dissolved in the early ‘90s. Status of Nuclear Weapons States and Their Nuclear Capabilities
July 25, 1965 Martin Luther King, Jr., participated in protests against housing segregation in Chicago. His Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) joined with the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO), led by Al Raby, a black schoolteacher, in the Chicago Freedom Movement. More on the CCCO Martin Luther King talks to Al Raby of Chicago’s Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO)as they lead the march down State Street.To King’s right is Jack Spiegel of the United Shoeworkers, and to Raby’s left is King assistant Bernard Lee.
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