ICE Detains U.S. Citizens in 2025: Mistakes or Systemic Abuse?
In 2025, under a Trump-ordered immigration crackdown, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained at least seven American citizens — all Latino or Black — under the false assumption that they were undocumented immigrants. These weren’t isolated incidents. They were spread across multiple states and included individuals with valid ID, clean records, and in some cases, even proof of citizenship on hand.
A Year of Detention Mistakes — Or Something More?
Here’s a quick snapshot of just a few cases documented in 2025:
- Leonardo Garcia Venegas: a U.S. citizen and Army veteran, was held by ICE for nearly a week in Texas after being pulled over for a broken taillight. His passport and military ID were ignored.
- Jamari Whitaker: a 19-year-old Black teen from Georgia, was detained for three days even after local police told ICE he was born in Atlanta.
- Vanessa Cruz: a bilingual schoolteacher from California, was held in an ICE facility after she refused to sign self-deportation paperwork she couldn’t read — despite showing her U.S. birth certificate.
Watchdog groups have identified at least seven confirmed wrongful detentions of U.S. citizens by ICE in early 2025. The ACLU warns the true number may be higher.
DHS Says It’s “A Few Bad Apples.” Critics Say It’s a Rotten Tree.
DHS called these unfortunate “processing errors.” But nearly all detained shared two things: they were Black or Latino and detained in states that expanded ICE-local cooperation under Trump’s directives.
Civil rights groups point to:
- Poor verification procedures
- Racial profiling via ICE-police data sharing
- Dismantling of prior safeguards
A Pattern, Not a Fluke
2025 saw a spike after Trump’s January executive order removed safeguards that once required ICE to verify status before detainers. The reintroduction of expedited removal combined with lax oversight made this predictable — and inevitable.
Where’s the Accountability?
DHS claims it’s “reviewing procedures.” But ICE quotas and lack of transparency remain. The DHS Inspector General is reportedly looking into it, and some members of Congress have demanded hearings. So far, House Judiciary refuses to act.
Final Thoughts
Is this incompetence or something darker — a system that treats brown and Black Americans as suspects by default? Either way, the 2025 ICE detentions raise a chilling question: if your name sounds “foreign,” is your citizenship still safe?
