A U.S.-born citizen who was wrestled into the dirt, handcuffed and detained in a vehicle as part of an immigration raid had a REAL ID on him that was dismissed as fake, the man’s cousin said Friday.
Video of the arrest, aired by Noticias Telemundo, showed authorities grabbing Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, while at a job site in Foley, Alabama, on Wednesday and bending his arms behind him. Someone off-camera can be heard yelling, “He’s a citizen.”
Garcia told Noticias Telemundo that authorities took his ID from his wallet and told him it was fake before handcuffing him. REAL ID is the identification U.S. citizens are required by law to have in order to travel through airports and enter federal buildings. It is considered a higher security form of identification.
“Apparently a REAL ID is not valid anymore. He has a REAL ID,” his cousin Shelah Venegas said. “We all made sure we have the REAL ID and went through the protocols the administration is asking for. … He has his REAL ID and then they see him and I guess because his English isn’t fluent and/or because he’s brown it’s fake, it’s not real.”
Garcia had told Noticias Telemundo that “they grabbed me real bad” and the handcuffs were placed “very hard” on him.
Garcia said he was released from the vehicle where he was held after he gave the arresting officials his Social Security number, which showed he is a U.S. citizen.
The arrest has left Garcia, who was born in Florida, shaken, particularly because the officers also arrested and detained his brother, who is not in the country legally, Venegas said. She added that Garcia lived with his brother. Their parents are from Mexico.
Leonardo Garcia Venegas.Telemundo
“He was actually pretty sore when he got back,” Venegas said of Garcia. “He said his arms were hurting and his hands. His wrists, you could see where he had all the marks from the handcuffs. … The way they put him on the ground, his knees also were hurting.”
She said they have been trying to find a lawyer but local ones have told them that it is nearly impossible to sue a federal agent. It is not clear from the video whether the authorities were federal immigration agents or local law enforcement carrying out enforcement duties.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to NBC News that Garcia interfered with an arrest during a targeted worksite operation.
“He physically got in between agents and the subject they were attempting to arrest and refused to comply with numerous verbal commands,” said Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary. “Anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties, including U.S. citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest.”
The response did not address the dismissal of Garcia’s identification.
Garcia denied that he interrupted an arrest. He told NBC News that he was trying to take out his phone when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent took it and threw it to the ground and then an agent began grabbing him.
Venegas said Garcia’s brother has signed deportation papers because the family didn’t want him detained “forever” as they’ve seen happen to another family member, who was held for months in a Louisiana detention center.
“It’s inhumane, what they are doing to our people. They are treating them as if they were murderers,” she said.
Venegas said the immigration arrests are creating repercussions among Hispanics, even among U.S. citizens.
“It’s about race now. It’s not about whether you are here legally or not,” she said.
Her family owns a fairly large contracting company, she said, “and a lot of the people that work with us are not working. … They are refusing to go to work. They said they are not going to go until this stuff calms down.”
Venegas added that the majority of her family is self-employed and “we do the same thing every other citizen does.”
“It’s just insane we can’t be different, the color that we are. We contribute to this country the same way every other citizen does with their taxes,” she said. “But we have to be the ones that every time we go to work, we are going to be scared that we’re going to get discriminated.”
“I think about my family,” she said. “Even though a lot of them are citizens, I think about how we all work in the same area in construction and they can’t sit out there because they could literally get harassed or attacked the way my cousin did.”
ICE wrestled Alabama worker to the ground & detain him for hours—he is a U.S. citizen.
Young man was begging & shouting, "I am a U.S. citizen"—but that didn't stop ICE agents from dragging him off to a detention center.
This is selective persecution which is illegal. So if this ever goes to court he will have the charges dismissed. In the meantime the hate party cult of tRump just made him a front runner for the mayoral election. Hugs.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested for allegedly trespassing at an ICE facility in New Jersey on Friday afternoon, authorities said.
“The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon,” Alina Habba, the Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, posted on X.
Baraka was taken to an ICE field office at 620 Frelinghuysen Ave. in Newark, according to his office. The charges have not been announced.
“We are actively monitoring and will provide more details as they become available,” his representatives said.
Witnesses said the arrest came after Baraka attempted to join a scheduled tour of the facility with three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, Reps. Robert Menendez, LaMonica McIver, and Bonnie Watson Coleman.
When federal officials blocked his entry, a heated argument broke out, according to Viri Martinez, an activist with the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. It continued even after Baraka returned to the public side of the gates.
In video of the altercation shared with The Associated Press, a federal official in a jacket with the logo of the Homeland Security Investigations can be heard telling Baraka he could not join a tour of the facility because “you are not a congress member.”
Baraka then left the secure area, rejoining protesters on the public side of the gate. Video showed him speaking through the gate to a man in a suit, who said: “They’re talking about coming back to arrest you.”
“I’m not on their property. They can’t come out on the street and arrest me,” Baraka replied.
Minutes later several ICE agents, some wearing face coverings, surrounded him and others on the public side. As protesters cried out, “Shame,” Baraka was dragged back through the security gate in handcuffs.
“The ICE personnel came out aggressively to arrest him and grab him,” said Julie Moreno, a New Jersey state captain of American Families United. “It didn’t make any sense why they chose that moment to grab him while he was outside the gates.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that as a bus of detainees was entering the detention center, “a group of protestors, including two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility.”
Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin was quoted in the statement as calling it “beyond a bizarre political stunt” and saying it put agents’ and detainees’ safety at risk.
“Members of Congress are not above the law and cannot illegally break into detention facilities. Had these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated a tour of the facility,” McLaughlin said.
The department said the facility has the proper permits and inspections have been cleared.
The Newark mayor was visiting Delaney Hall to conduct oversight after the building was turned into an ICE facility.
Delany Hall was leased for $63 million annually from a private prison group known as The GEO Group. The city of Newark is suing for more inspections, claiming ICE has not indicated how many detainees it has in the building – which can only house 1,000 people.
Baraka said on Monday that the issues at Delany Hall go beyond the lack of safety inspections and proper permits.
This is a developing story please check back for updates.
Dominique Jack is a digital content producer from Brooklyn with more than five years of experience covering news. She joined PIX11 in 2024. More of her work can be found here.
–Associated press material was used in this report.
John Oliver discusses the recent deportations by the Trump administration, the conditions in the facility people are being sent to abroad, and why even Henry Winkler could be in danger of being expelled from the U.S. Yeah, even national treasure Henry Winkler.
ICE is a thug unit run by a major thug. This family was badly mistreated, in some ways brutalized. I read earlier where the mother said the 20 ICE agents who broke into their home with no warring then wanted the women, one adult and the others teenagers to remove their clothing in front of them to get dressed before being forced outside in the rain. The report said the mother refused saying even her husband had not seen the children nude and she did not want them to do that in front of these men. They were ordered in their “underwear” outside in the rain where they were kept for hours. Is this the government / police any way people should be treated by law enforcement in the US. They so disrespected this family sure in the fact they were correct with no room for any doubt. They had no empathy, no common sense. In the time I was an axillary sheriff’s deputy we were trained never to act like that. We were taught to respect the rights of people but be aware they might be lying and the danger of the situation. Respect the rights of the people. All people on US soil, in the country regardless of status have due process rights. The right wing haters want to tell you that if you are here illegally you have no rights but SCOTUS has repeatedly said every person here does. Hugs
As for Marissa’s phones, electronics, and cash, they have no idea which agency has those belongings or how to get those items back.
At this time, there is not a fundraising campaign set up for the family. KFOR will share any details if that happens.
Original:
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — A woman says her family’s fresh start in Oklahoma turned into a nightmare after federal immigration agents raided their home, taking their phones, laptops, and life savings – even though they were not the suspects the agents were looking for.
The agents had a search warrant for the home, but the suspects listed on the warrant do not live in the house.
The woman who actually lives in the house had just moved to Oklahoma City from Maryland with her family about two weeks earlier.
The woman, who News 4 will refer to as “Marisa”, and her three daughters came to Oklahoma looking for a slower, more affordable pace of life.
They rented a house in a seemingly safe northwest Oklahoma City neighborhood.
Her husband stayed back in Maryland a couple of extra weeks, planning to join them this weekend.
“I was like, ‘okay, Oklahoma’s my home now,’” Marisa said.
But any comfort they had disappeared Thursday morning when about 20 men, armed with guns, busted through the door.
“I don’t know who they were,” she said. “It was dark. All the lights were off.”
Marisa said the men identified themselves as federal agents with the U.S. Marshals, ICE, and the FBI.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service denied having agents present during the raid, telling News 4 they were “aware of the operation before it happened,” but did not assist in any capacity.
“I keep asking them, ‘who are you? What are you doing here? What’s happening,’” she said. “And they said, ‘we have a warrant for the house, a search warrant.’”
She said they ordered her and her daughters outside into the rain before they could even put on clothes.
“They wanted me to change in front of all of them, in between all of them,” she said. “My husband has not even seen my daughter in her undergarments—her own dad, because it’s respectful. You have her out there, a minor, in her underwear.”
Marisa said the names on the search warrant were not hers or anyone in her family.
She recognized them as names listed on mail still arriving at the house—likely former residents.
“We just moved here from Maryland,” she said. “We’re citizens. That’s what I kept saying. We’re citizens.”
She said the agents didn’t care.
“They were very dismissive, very rough, very careless,” she said. “I kept pleading. I kept telling them we weren’t criminals. They were treating us like criminals. We were here by ourselves. We didn’t do anything.”
Marisa said the agents tore apart every square inch of the house and what few belongings they had, seizing their phones, laptops and their life savings in cash as “evidence.”
“I told them before they left, I said you took my phone. We have no money. I just moved here,” she said. “I have to feed my children. I’m going to need gas money. I need to be able to get around. Like, how do you just leave me like this? Like an abandoned dog.”
Before they left, Marisa said one of the agents made a comment.
“One of them said, ‘I know it was a little rough this morning,’” she said. “It was so denigrating. That you do all of this to a family, to women, your fellow citizens. And it was a little rough? You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life. We’re going to have to go get help or get over this somehow.”
Now, Marisa said they have, quite literally, nothing.
“I said, ‘when are we going to get our stuff back?’ They said it could be days or it could be months,” she said.
Marisa said she is left with nothing but questions.
“What if I would have been armed,” she said. “You’re breaking in. What am I supposed to think? My initial thought was we were being robbed—that my daughters, being females, were being kidnapped. You have guns pointed in our faces.Can you just reprogram yourself and see us as humans, as women?A little bit of mercy. Care a little bit about your fellow human, about your fellow citizen, fellow resident. We bleed too. We work. We bleed just like anybody else bleeds. We’re scared. You could see our faces that we were terrified. What makes you so much more worthier of your peace? What makes you so much more worthier of protecting your children? What makes you so much more worthy of your citizenship? What makes you more worthy of safety? Of being given the right that they took from me to protect my daughters?”
Marisa told News 4 the agents wouldn’t even leave her a business card.
She said she has no idea who to contact to get her things back.
Marissa told KFOR the U.S. Marshal’s Service and the FBI were involved in this raid.
However, a representative for the U.S. Marshal’s Service says their team was not involved.
News 4 reached out to the FBI. Last week, a spokesperson said they were assisting on this case and directed inquiries to Homeland Security.
A spokesperson for Homeland Security told News 4 they are looking into it and will get back to us, but we have not heard from them.
As for Marissa’s phones, electronics, and cash, they have no idea which agency has those belongings or how to get those items back.
Trump’s D.C. U.S. attorney pick appeared on Russian state media over 150 times
Nominee Ed Martin did not initially disclose his RT and Sputnik appearances from 2016 to 2024 to the Senate. The State Department has said the networks act like arms of Russian intelligence.
Starmer told UK must repeal hate speech laws to protect LGBT+ people or lose Trump trade deal
‘Good chance’ of agreement, says JD Vance – but a source close to the administration says his concerns over Britain’s hate speech laws ‘are still a red line’
Australian with working visa detained and deported on returning to US from sister’s memorial
Man who says he had previously left and re-entered the country multiple times alleges border officials called him ‘retarded’ and boasted ‘Trump is back in town’
These people are not undocumented. They had immigration papers. Plus the Tren de Aragua gang do not have common tattoos nor hand signals. So everything the government claims is again suspect and wrong. I offer the quotes below. They had papers saying this person is not subject to removal but ICE took them anyway. Hugs
“Let me be as crystal clear as possible,” Cano wrote in his resignation, obtained by KOAT. “The very first time I ever heard that the boys could possibly have any association with Tren de Aragua was when I was informed of that by [the] agents on the day of the raid.”
He added that each of the men had immigration paperwork that suggested that they were not subject to removal. “Their papers stated in the upper right-hand corner, ‘This Person is Not Subject to Removal.’ They each had a specific court date regarding their asylum hearing,” Cano stated.
Story by Kelly Rissman
• 23h
Immigration authorities raided a former New Mexico judge’s home, where they accused him of harboring an alleged Tren de Aragua gang member, and took him into custody.
Former Dona Ana County Magistrate Judge Joel Cano, 67, and his wife, Nancy Cano, 68, were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcementx Thursday after a tipster claimed that undocumented migrants associated with the Venezuelan gang were staying at their home. The couple has been charged with tampering with evidence, jail records show.
The investigation began in January 2025 after ICE received an anonymous tip that “an illegal alien from Venezuela and a suspected member of a criminal gang, was residing with other illegal aliens in the United States” at the judge’s home in Las Cruces and was in possession of firearms, according to court filings.
Two search warrants were executed at the Canos’ home on February 28, during which authorities seized four guns and took three immigrants into custody, documents say.
The judge resigned in March after federal authorities accused the couple of housing an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant, Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, at their home.
A former New Mexico judge, Joel Cano, and his wife, Nancy Cano, were arrested after ICE accused them of harboring members of a Venezuelan gang (Dona Ana County Jail)
“Let me be as crystal clear as possible,” Cano wrote in his resignation, obtained by KOAT. “The very first time I ever heard that the boys could possibly have any association with Tren de Aragua was when I was informed of that by [the] agents on the day of the raid.”
He added that each of the men had immigration paperwork that suggested that they were not subject to removal. “Their papers stated in the upper right-hand corner, ‘This Person is Not Subject to Removal.’ They each had a specific court date regarding their asylum hearing,” Cano stated.
He continued: “I have three grandkids that I love dearly. Their ages are 15, 8 and 6. There is no way in the world that I would have allowed my grandkids to have any contact with the boys if I had sensed danger.”
Ortego-Lopez installed a glass door for Nancy Cano in late 2023, according to court documents. He continued doing a few jobs for her in 2024 and after he was evicted from his apartment in April 2024, she offered him a stay in their “casita,” a small house on their property. There, Ortego-Lopez was given access to guns, the filing says.
Ortega-Lopez allegedly posted photos of himself on social media holding guns. Agents also looked at the social media accounts of the other undocumented immigrants staying at the judge’s house that suggests “clear indicators” of association with the Venezuelan gang.
“These indicators included tattoos, clothing apparel and displaying hand gestures,” the government wrote.
Nancy Cano has been accused of witness tampering after she allegedly let Venezuelan gang members live in a ‘casita’ on her property (Dona Ana County Jail)
The president’s order states that “all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of [Tren de Aragua], are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.” The ACLU sued administration officials over their use of the Alien Enemies Act and a judge issued a temporary restraining order barring the migrants from being deported. Still, the planes flew to El Salvador; the judge this month said he found “probable cause” to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt.
The Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the Trump administration has the authority to deport migrants under the centuries-old act but also ordered that the government provide detainees an opportunity to contest their removals in court districts nearest to the detention centers where they are being held.
The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary and analysis for the independently-minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.
The judge was to be arraigned that day. Under federal procedures, she would likely appear in U.S. District Court on the day of the arrest. Instead she was sent to an ICE detention facility and denied her due process rights. This is not legal nor right. They refused her rights to due process. She is a citizen. Hugs
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested April 25 by federal authorities who are investigating whether she tried to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest after he appeared in her courtroom last week, officials confirmed.
Brady McCarron, spokesman for U.S. Marshals Service in Washington, D.C., confirmed Dugan was arrested at about 8 a.m. at the Milwaukee County Courthouse and is in federal custody. Under federal procedures, she would likely appear in U.S. District Court on the day of the arrest.
FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X about the arrest. He later deleted the post.
“Just NOW, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on charges of obstruction — after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week,” Patel wrote. “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest.”
Multiple Milwaukee County judges confirmed that the arrest took place at the courthouse. Chief Judge Carl Ashley confirmed the incident in an email to courthouse officials.
Officials have not yet identified the defendant whom she is accused of assisting, but it appears to be Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican immigrant facing three misdemeanor battery counts. He was in Dugan’s courtroom on April 18 for a pre-trial conference.
Flores-Ruiz, 30, is listed as being in ICE custody at Dodge Detention Facility in Juneau, according to the federal online detainee locator system.
Sources have told the Journal Sentinel that ICE officials arrived in Dugan’s courtroom on the morning of April 18. When they went to the chief judge’s office, Dugan directed the defendant and his attorney to a side door in the courtroom, directed them down a private hallway and into the public area on the 6th floor.
Last week’s arrest marked at least the third time in recent months that federal immigration agents have come to the courthouse with arrest warrants. In March and early April, two people were arrested by ICE officials in the hallways of the courthouse.
This is a breaking story and was updated with new information. More updates are coming.
A 20 year old man who is a US citizen with a Hispanic sounding name has twice been arrested and ordered held by ICE. The first time he was released as he sowed the judge his birth certificate and his social security card. The second time he was ordered held for 48 hours for pickup by ICE for an immigration hearing even after the judge seen and vouched for his birth certificate. The prosecutor claimed the court had no jurisdiction now that ICE had a detaining order on him. I don’t think that is legally correct as blue states have said they won’t honor those orders. But the point is it has happened twice now, and if the US doesn’t grant due process people like him could be detained and removed to El Salvador where the tRump people claim they can’t get people back from. We can get our people from Russia, North Korea, and China but we can’t from tiny El Salvador. Hugs
They are not arresting people. They are vanishing them.
Rumeysa Ozturk wasn’t read her rights. She wasn’t told why she was being detained. She was walking to break her fast in Somerville, Massachusetts when masked men in an unmarked SUV pulled up, took her phone, slapped on handcuffs, and dragged her into a vehicle like she was some kind of national security threat.
She’s a doctoral student. A Fulbright scholar. A trauma researcher. But in Donald Trump’s America, she fit the profile: Muslim, foreign-born, sympathetic to Palestinians.
Now she’s locked in a for-profit detention center in Louisiana, hundreds of miles from her lawyer, after a federal judge specifically said she wasn’t to be moved.
They moved her anyway. Because rules no longer apply to those with badges — real or fake.
A MOVEMENT BUILT ON CHAINS AND COWARDS
Alireza Doroudi is gone too.
He’s a doctoral student at the University of Alabama, born in Iran, studying mechanical engineering. No criminal record. No warning. Just scooped off the grid.
ICE refuses to say where he’s being held. No public charge has been announced. His only crime appears to be existing in the wrong body, from the wrong country, in the wrong era.
Mahmoud Khalil was next — a Columbia student, arrested for leading pro-Palestinian protests. Trump labeled him a “radical foreign Hamas sympathizer” on Truth Social. Days later, he was gone.
Jeanette Vizguerra was taken from her Target shift in Colorado, chained at the waist.
Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, a farmworker organizer, was dragged from his car at dawn in Washington. His window was smashed by federal agents. His voice silenced.
These aren’t isolated incidents. These are deliberate acts of political intimidation.
They are testing the system — testing us — to see how many people they can disappear before we stop calling it democracy.
WHEN ICE IS A BADGE — AND A COSTUME
While the real ICE disappears scholars, organizers, and mothers, the fakes are circling like vultures.
In South Carolina, Sean-Michael Johnson posed as an ICE officer. He pulled over a van of Latino men, screamed slurs, jiggled their keys, and knocked a phone out of someone’s hand. “You’re going back to Mexico!” he shouted. He wasn’t an agent — but he played one with conviction.
In North Carolina, Carl Thomas Bennett used a fake badge to sexually assault a woman at a motel. He told her if she didn’t comply, he’d have her deported. He held up a counterfeit ID and pretended to be the state.
And in Philadelphia, a Temple University student in an “ICE” shirt tried to storm a dorm building with two accomplices. They were dressed for the part, intoxicated by the illusion of authority, emboldened by the climate.
This is what happens when the state makes cruelty a brand. When a badge becomes a fetish object. When the line between enforcement and cosplay disappears altogether.
THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS THE CRIME
Let’s stop pretending this is a coincidence.
This is a unified strategy. The Trump administration is using ICE like a personal strike force — targeting international students, protest leaders, organizers, and mothers with surgical precision.
They invoke secret designations. They bypass due process. They manufacture pretexts out of thin air and rely on the fog of bureaucracy to hide the blood on the floor.
The point isn’t law enforcement. The point is deterrence. Spectacle. Control.
This is what political cleansing looks like when it’s dressed up in the language of national security.
They’re showing the world that resistance has a cost — and the cost is your freedom, your voice, your visibility, your future.
SILENCE IS CONSENT. AND WE ARE LOUD.
There is no middle ground here. No fence to sit on. No neutral position when people are being kidnapped in the name of the state.
ICE doesn’t need your applause. It needs your silence. Every time a student vanishes and the media shrugs, every time a woman is cuffed and the public looks away, the machine gets stronger.
They are daring us to ignore it. They are counting on our numbness. They are betting that we’ll keep scrolling.
We cannot let them win.
This is not border policy. This is not visa enforcement. This is not safety.This is authoritarianism with a PowerPoint presentation.This is fascism disguised as formality.
This is the state stripping people from the land and pretending it’s order.
Let the record show:
They took people.
And we did not look away.
We saw it.
We named it.
We raised hell.
And we did not stop.
(I didn’t write this. Credit goes to Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge)
Daniel Bice
Scottie's Playtime 