In the States: Widening Deportation Dragnet Targets U.S. Citizens, Legal Residents, and Asylum Seekers
Trump’s crackdown is reaching into neighborhoods across the country, targeting everyday Americans and striking fear in families and sowing chaos in their communities
The administration continues to bypass due process in order to target legal residents, essential workers, students, and community leaders, revealing a horrifying truth: Trump’s immigration policy is cruel, chaotic, and indiscriminate. Now, with the expanded use of a 1798 wartime law, the implementation of a national registry policy, and a pending $200 billion check from Congress, Trump is set to supercharge these efforts through militarized enforcement, invasive surveillance, and government overreach–all at the expense of civil rights and working families.
Across the country, ICE and Border Patrol are arresting innocent people—including U.S. citizens, legal residents, and asylum seekers—often at homes, schools, and courthouses. A 19-year-old citizen was jailed for 10 days in Arizona. In Florida, another was detained despite his mother showing his birth certificate. In California, a father was arrested while taking his daughter to school. In New Jersey and Massachusetts, men were seized during routine check-ins. Agents smashed a car window to detain a Guatemalan asylum seeker. In New York, children were arrested at school. In Las Vegas, plainclothes officers waited outside homes. In Colorado and Minnesota, courthouse arrests and politically motivated detentions have sparked outrage.
Read more about the everyday Americans affected by Trump’s anti-immigrant assault:
People’s Vanguard of Davis: ICE Officers Forcibly Detain Guatemalan Immigrant Awaiting Asylum Hearing (April 21, 2025; New Bedford, MA)
A Guatemalan immigrant and asylum seeker awaiting his hearing was forcibly removed from his car, along with his wife, and wrongly detained last week, according to the Office of Congressman William Keating.
They then told the agents that they were waiting for their lawyer to arrive before speaking to the officers, but in the meantime, his wife asked if ICE had a warrant for her husband’s arrest, to which they remained silent.
following the agents’ denial to let the two leave, ICE officials persisted in asking the woman “to roll down her window to speak.”
The ICE officers then escalated the situation, smashing the car’s back window.
The Guardian: US citizen wrongfully arrested by border patrol in Arizona held for nearly 10 days (April 20, 2025; Tucson, AZ)
19-year-old Jose Hermosillo, a New Mexico resident visiting Arizona, was detained by border patrol agents in Nogales, a city along the Mexico border about an hour south of Tucson.
According to a border patrol criminal complaint, on 8 April, a border patrol official found Hermosillo “without the proper immigration documents” and claimed that the young American had admitted entering the US illegally from Mexico. Two days later, the federal court document notes that Hermosillo continued to claim he was a US citizen. On 17 April, a federal judge dismissed his case.
After the family tracked him down, they provided officials with his birth certificate and social security card.
NBC News: California dad taking his daughter to school arrested by immigration agents (April 18, 2025; Azusa, CA)
The man is seen wearing a blue outfit walking to his family truck when several agents box him in.
His wife recorded the moment he was put into a grey sedan after his 14-year-old daughter, whom he was about to drive to school, ran back inside crying and afraid, saying someone had taken her dad.
“He didn’t have a deportation order, I don’t know why they took him. Why did they take him?” the wife said.
CBS: New Jersey man arrested by ICE has no criminal history, wife says (April 18, 2025; Hunterdon County, NJ)
Jennifer Metz said her husband, Karim Daoud, an Egyptian native, was detained over a month ago during a regular meeting with ICE about his immigration status, but he has no criminal history.
"It takes a long time. There's a lot of time paused in between appointments and filings," Metz said. "We have two kids. We've been married for a long time. We have been doing everything that we have been told to do."
News 15: FBI & ICE arrest 31 people across Louisiana, including parts of Acadiana (April 18, 2025; Louisiana)
News 3 Las Vegas: ICE enforcement activity increases in Las Vegas, sparking community concern, sources say (April 18, 2025; Las Vegas, NV)
"This week, plain clothes officials and unmarked cars have been increasing anxiety with the community," said Bethany Khan of the Culinary Union.
"On Sunday, ice enforcement at a residence at Nellis Stewart, local business at sunset, and Decatur on Monday, and we were notified of a targeted ICE detention of a legal permanent resident in this instance, which is really concerning for the community," said Khan.
Khan also listed incidents at Bonanza and 10th, and an indoor swap meet near Owens and Eastern, as well as two incidents where detentions occurred before and after school during drop-offs.
"One thing we have seen is that these detentions seem to be targeted," said Martha Menendez, a local immigration attorney. "So, we have not yet seen any big raids.”
“I don't personally see any kind of pattern as to why they're detaining certain people and not others."
"What we've been seeing more of is Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Officers waiting outside of someone's residence for them to leave, they'll often wait in unmarked vans, unmarked vehicles, and attempt to engage in in sort of like an immediate action thereafter when somebody's in a public space, versus actually attempting to enter into someone's home," said Haseebullah.
The Independent: US-born citizen detained ‘unlawfully’ by ICE is freed hours after his mom begs in court and shows his birth certificate (April 18, 2025; FL).
A 20-year-old U.S. citizen was held in a Florida jail for hours by federal immigration authorities despite his mother showing his birth certificate to a judge.
Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was released on Thursday night after being arrested during a traffic stop and accused of being undocumented.
Lopez-Gomez was taken to Leon County Jail after a traffic stop and charged with illegally entering the state as an “unauthorized alien” under a state law that has been temporarily blocked from enforcement by a federal judge.
Lopez-Gomez’s first language is Tzotzil, a Mayan language, according to the Florida Phoenix.
Syracuse.com: Inside Trump’s Upstate NY migrant hunt: Border Patrol’s meaner tactics snare workers and families (April 17, 2025; NY)
In January, Delmy Rendón smashed her car into a deer on a rural highway in Upstate New York, near the Canadian border. She knocked on the door of the nearest house for help. The residents were not kind, her mother said. After Rendón’s arrest, border patrol agents tracked her husband down at work and arrested him, too. When he refused to go without his daughters, officers went to West Carthage Elementary School and detained them, too.
Deputies are stopping Hispanic drivers for minor, unprovable traffic violations like veering left of center, then handing them over to Border Patrol agents who are sometimes already at the scene, the Syracuse.com investigation shows.
In other cases, immigration agents act on anonymous tips and stake out homes. They follow migrant workers from work sites to restaurants.
Undercover officers in ski masks show up at dairy farms in unmarked cars.
In February, a Homeland Security investigator in plain clothes followed a Guatemalan man into his driveway in Fulton, grabbed his arm and told him he was not free to go, body camera video shows. Gabrielle DiBella, a public defender in federal court, said the man was driving someone else’s car and there was no way agents had time to run his background before handcuffing him and taking him away.
Edilia Zavala Canales’ brother and partner have both been arrested in separate traffic stops in recent weeks by the “greens,” a nickname referring to Border Patrol’s uniforms.
Returning to Honduras is not an option, she said, because of intimidation by gangs. She asked a lawyer to write a letter in English that explains her request for asylum. She carries it everywhere.
Sheriff’s deputies often say they are calling in Border Patrol for translation services.
On Feb. 28, a Homeland Security investigator in plain clothes followed Jonas Morales-Lopez into his driveway in Fulton in an unmarked black SUV.
Morales-Lopez had just finished the night shift at a bakery. Hundreds of pages of documents provided to public defenders do not show any reason he was followed or a warrant for his arrest, his public defender said.
Colorado Community Media: Alleged ICE arrest outside Douglas County courthouse captured on video (April 17, 2025; Douglas County, CO)
A group of masked individuals believed to be U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents was allegedly involved in arrests outside the Robert A. Christensen Courthouse in Douglas County around 1 p.m. Thursday.
The video, recorded and posted by community advocate MiDian Shofner, was taken during a rally titled “Justice for Jalin Seabron.”
The video shows at least five individuals in tactical vests with face coverings detaining at least two people and escorting them into a black Suburban and a white van.
Jaime said he asked why he was being detained but received no answer. The agents demanded to see his identification. When he didn’t hand it over, they pulled it out of his pocket themselves. Upon seeing he was a U.S. citizen, Jaime said the agents released him and told him, “Sorry, we made a mistake.”
CPR News: Western Slope judge warns ICE to stop civil immigration actions in courthouses (April 16, 2025; Colorado)
Ninth Judicial District Chief Judge John Neiley issued the previously unreported order for Garfield, Pitkin and Rio Blanco counties on April 8. In it, he wrote that the decision by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to “locate, identify and detain individuals” in and around the district’s courthouses has caused “confusion, anxiety and fear in what is often already an emotionally charged environment.”
In recent months, people working in the Garfield County courthouse say that ICE has been a steady presence inside the building in downtown Glenwood Springs, detaining between five to 10 people since January who were either in the courthouse or just outside of it.
Colorado has a five-year-old state law that prohibits civil enforcement actions by ICE inside or around the perimeter of courthouses. That includes sidewalks, driveways, entryways, green spaces or parking lots.
MPR News: Marshall man claims ICE detained him for protests over police killings (April 15, 2025; Marshall, MN)
When 33 year-old Aditya Harsono went to work as usual in late March, he didn’t know that he would be getting arrested by federal authorities.
“They just put handcuffs on me, saying that ‘You’re under arrest,’” the Marshall man told MPR News over the phone from the Kandiyohi County Jail. “I was like, ‘OK, but can you tell me why?’ They say, ‘Yeah, your visa got revoked.’”
Now, Harsono’s facing potential deportation despite having a valid F-1 visa that wasn’t expiring until June 2026. He also had pending applications for permanent residency based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen. He’s still in custody at the Kandiyohi County Jail.
But it’s for another reason that he believes he was detained by ICE — Harsono was arrested for unlawful assembly at a 2021 protest for the killing of Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center on April 11, 2021. The charge against Harsono was later dismissed.
Newsweek: ICE Agents Realize They Arrested Wrong Teen, Say 'Take Him Anyway' (April 15, 2025;
The young man, Merwil Gutiérrez, was later deported to El Salvador's notorious super prison, despite his family's insistence that he has no gang ties or criminal history.
"The officers grabbed him and two other boys right at the entrance to our building. One said, 'No, he's not the one,' like they were looking for someone else. But the other said, 'Take him anyway.'”
Gutiérrez, who fled instability in Venezuela and was pursuing an asylum case in the U.S, was detained in the Bronx by ICE agents conducting a targeted operation.
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If you were issued a deportation order, the only "Due Process" is to leave the country. We need everyone with a deportation order removed, now. Like they were told to do.