ProPublica documents over 500 U.S. citizens detained by immigration agents

DHS denies pattern; former officials call findings ‘an embarrassment’

ProPublica has documented more than 500 cases of U.S. citizens detained by federal immigration agents between January 2025 and September 2026 — Americans held at gunpoint, handcuffed, kept for days without access to a lawyer, and in some cases deported despite their citizenship. The newsroom said its list is an undercount, restricted to warrantless arrests outside airports and away from the borders, and excluding incidents in which agents shot, tackled or pepper-sprayed a citizen without detaining them.

The findings directly contradict statements from the Department of Homeland Security. “DHS is NOT arresting U.S. citizens by mistake,” the department has said. “There are no ‘indiscriminate’ stops.” Allegations of racial profiling are “disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE,” according to DHS messaging. “The pattern is NOT of law enforcement using force.” “ICE does not zip tie or restrain children.” DHS told ProPublica that “DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted. We do our due diligence.” But that is precisely what is happening, ProPublica found, and at a far larger scale than previously reported.

Former immigration officials who reviewed the findings and footage from many of the incidents reacted with anger and disbelief. “This is just terrible,” said Eric Balliet, who spent more than two decades at Homeland Security Investigations and Border Patrol, including in President Donald Trump’s first administration. “I’ve never seen so many U.S. citizen encounters in all my years,” said Darius Reeves, who oversaw ICE’s Baltimore office before retiring last year. “It’s an embarrassment.”

The cases ProPublica catalogued fall into two broad categories. The first is more than 100 citizens held after agents questioned their citizenship — “nearly all” of whom were people of color. The second is roughly 300 Americans arrested after being accused of assaulting or impeding agents; in fewer than half of those cases did federal charges actually follow, and many of the charges that were filed were later dropped or dismissed. ProPublica also documented at least 63 Americans detained while recording agents, and 36 held for more than a day without contacting a lawyer or family.

Immigration agents do have authority to detain Americans in limited circumstances: if they can reasonably suspect they are in the country illegally, or if the person allegedly interfered with or assaulted officers. Under the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement generally must have probable cause to arrest someone, but there is a lower bar, reasonable suspicion, for stopping someone to question them. The amendment also prohibits officers from entering homes without a judge’s warrant and is intended to protect people from “unreasonable” use of force during arrests. The administration has said its agents are questioning citizens, not detaining them, even when the citizens are in handcuffs or held for hours. DHS has cited a concurring opinion issued last year by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh stating that agents can consider factors like “apparent ethnicity” when making stops.

The cases ProPublica documented span the country and the calendar. In January 2025, agents held a 21-year-old citizen at gunpoint and handcuffed him during a raid at a Philadelphia car wash where he worked. In April of that year, a 20-year-old was held in a Florida jail for more than 24 hours despite showing proof of his citizenship. In June, a dual U.S.-Mexican citizen detained while working in California was held for four days without access to a lawyer or his family. In November, agents took an 18-year-old citizen off the street and eventually dumped him in the woods. In December, an American in Baltimore was held for 25 days and unable to see her 5-year-old son over Christmas. In January, hours after Renee Good’s killing in Minneapolis, agents tackled and handcuffed a school staffer who recalled: “I feel lucky to be alive.” In April, a man stopped in Texas told agents, “I’m a citizen, it’s fine,” and was deported four days later. In May, a New York teen was thrown to the ground, bloodied and dumped in an unfamiliar neighborhood: “He just grabbed me and threw me on the floor,” the teen recalled. In September, agents detained and injured an Illinois man they thought was someone else.

Willy Wender Aceituno, a naturalized citizen who voted for Trump twice, was detained in November when Border Patrol agents broke his truck window, pulled him out and threw him onto a parking lot pavement, with one agent kneeling on his back. DHS said he “refused to comply” with agents’ commands. “ICE isn’t looking for criminals,” Aceituno told ProPublica. “They’re looking for Latinos. Having papers in this country does not protect you.” Aceituno said he was stopped twice by federal agents who broke his window, pulled him from the car and detained him, even as he and bystanders protested that he had already proved his citizenship to other agents. Since his arrest, Aceituno said, his U.S.-born daughter carries her passport at college. “She has a Latino face,” he said. “My daughter’s white friends aren’t carrying their passports.”

During the Chicago-area enforcement surge known as Operation Midway Blitz last fall, DHS said there were “no administrative arrests of U.S. citizens” and that “ICE has significant protections in place to ensure U.S. citizens are not arrested, detained, or mistakenly removed.” ProPublica found that federal agents detained more than 120 citizens in Illinois during the height of the surge.

Children were among those swept up. Agents handcuffed a 15-year-old with disabilities outside a Los Angeles school in 2025, saying they mistook the teen for an alleged gang member. Months later, officers detained more than a dozen American children during a raid on an Idaho horse track. Anabel Romero, whose children were detained, told ProPublica that her 7-year-old son warned his older sister before another race this month: “Watch out for ICE, make sure you have your phone to film — I’ll come save you.” ProPublica found roughly a dozen American children deported with their parents, allegedly over parental objections. DHS said: “Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates.”

In at least 63 cases, Americans were detained while recording agents, according to ProPublica’s tally. The First Amendment protects protesters and those documenting agents’ conduct — it guarantees the freedom to assemble peacefully and the freedom of speech, which courts have interpreted to include recording in public. Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and other top officials have said filming ICE agents interferes with arrests. Three siblings driving in Brownsville, Texas, were detained after they stopped to film an immigration arrest; one was a 14-year-old. The teen told ProPublica an agent “tackled me down and an agent put one knee behind my knee, where I felt a sharp pain,” and he was separated from his mother, who has a green card. “They were saying my mom wasn’t a U.S. citizen, and I was scared they were gonna take her away,” he said. Asked about the incident, DHS said it respects “the First Amendment rights of individuals to observe and express themselves. However, if such actions interfere with or obstruct our operations, ICE will take necessary steps to address the situation.” The siblings have filed claims for damages with the government.

During the enforcement surge in Chicago in October 2025, workers at a Christian cemetery in a Chicago suburb filmed agents using bolt cutters to cut open the cemetery gate after the workers refused access to a gated area; agents then fired pepper balls at the workers and detained them. Darren Eichler said his face “felt like it was on fire” and he had trouble breathing. “I pleaded with them for an hour to please call an ambulance,” Eichler told ProPublica. He was brought to a hospital, still handcuffed, while the agents stood over his bed; his co-workers were held for several hours at a nearby federal office. No one was charged. DHS did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment about the incident.

Of the more than 300 Americans ProPublica tracked as detained for allegedly assaulting or obstructing agents, about 130 were detained at protests. The newsroom found 137 instances of citizens charged with federal crimes, most of them with assaulting or obstructing federal agents; in nearly half of those instances, the charges were dropped or dismissed. As of September 15, three dozen citizens had been sentenced to prison or probation, and another three dozen cases were pending. The review also identified cases in which some protesters or civilians did appear to assault officers — one person pleaded guilty to throwing pieces of cinder block at an agent, and a woman in California pleaded guilty to pulling off an officer’s mask. Among those initially charged with felony assault before pleading to a misdemeanor was clarinet player Oriana Korol, accused of trying to kick an officer after officers shoved her and pepper-sprayed her twice in the face. Video footage shows agents leading Korol away, handcuffed, while one pulls her tear-gas-soaked mask over her mouth; she can be heard telling the agents, “Please pull it down. I’m going to have an asthma attack. I have asthma. Why are you doing this to me? Please.” The band had been playing the “Ghostbusters” theme song as part of a peaceful protest before she was detained.

Roughly a dozen Americans were deported during the period, mostly children removed with their families despite parental objections. One American adult, Brian Morales Garcia, was pulled over earlier this year in central Texas. Officers did not believe him when he said he was a citizen and would not let him get his birth certificate, ProPublica reported. Morales Garcia was held for four days without being able to call his lawyer or anyone else, then deported to Mexico. After suing, he was allowed back into the country last month using his birth certificate. “I couldn’t process what they were doing to me,” Morales Garcia told ProPublica. DHS did not respond to ProPublica’s questions about Morales Garcia’s deportation; in earlier court filings, officials disputed Morales Garcia’s citizenship and claimed he had admitted to being born in Mexico.

A whistleblower-disclosed internal ICE memo obtained by ProPublica showed that agents had been entering homes without judicial warrants, relying on administrative warrants that did not involve a judge, to arrest people with final deportation orders. Some of those incidents also resulted in Americans being detained. In January, federal agents broke through the door of a Minnesota home looking for Jeyli Salguero’s brother, who did not live there, according to a lawsuit. “The first thing I yelled when I stepped out of my room was that I was a U.S. citizen and I had the right to record,” Salguero recalled. “That’s when they snatched my phone.” After half an hour, the agents released Salguero and her mother, but detained her father, who had temporary protected status, and her sister, who was undocumented. The sister was eventually deported to El Salvador, and her father was later released from detention. Salguero told ProPublica the agents left her and her mother alone in their wrecked house with the Minneapolis winter air coming in through a broken door. Salguero is one of several plaintiffs who have filed a lawsuit against the government for going into homes without a judicial warrant; DHS has moved to dismiss the lawsuit, saying it has “paused” the policy.

A 17-year-old in Oregon was on his lunch break when agents broke his car window and detained him, ProPublica reported. DHS said he was obstructing officers. In the video, the teen is heard saying, “I’m a U.S. citizen,” as an agent responds, “I don’t care.”

ProPublica said it found and vetted cases from English- and Spanish-language social media, DHS statements, court records and local news reports, in addition to its own reporting. The newsroom included an incident in its dataset only if it could find at least two sources for it; for additional details, such as whether crowd control weapons were used, it accepted one source in some cases. ProPublica said it searched every named adult in its list to see if they were charged with a federal crime in relation to their detention, using the federal court records platform PACER, looking for criminal cases filed within two months of the date of detention in the judicial district where the detention occurred. As with the tally ProPublica did last year, the newsroom said its current list is almost certainly an undercount because the government does not track these cases. Witnesses estimated that more than 200 citizens were detained in an Idaho raid last fall, but ProPublica only included the 30 individuals it could identify. ICE itself told Congress that 131 citizens were arrested for assaulting, obstructing or interfering in Minnesota’s Metro Surge; ICE did not name them, and ProPublica cataloged fewer than 100.