‘We are not safe in America today:' These American citizens say they were detained by ICE

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3 hours ago

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Elzon Lemus is always on the road for work, traveling from one place to another.
But ever since federal immigration officers pulled the electrician over as he was driving to his first job of the day earlier this month in Nassau County, New York, Lemus has been on high alert, limiting his travel around town out of fear, he said — despite being a US citizen.
On June 3, Lemus says he was briefly detained during a traffic stop by federal agents because he resembled someone the agents were looking for, they told him and video from the encounter shows.
Lemus' arrest, and other reports of American citizens being detained by immigration officials, highlights growing concerns over racial profiling and constitutional rights — for both the documented and undocumented — as the Trump administration's broad mass deportation crackdown takes aim at people of all ages from children and families to suspected criminals by detaining people outside courtroom hearings, during traffic stops and in workplace sweeps.
It's not legal for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and detain US citizens, CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said. But under certain circumstances, immigration officers can arrest citizens without a warrant if they witness an 'offense against the United States' or a felony offense — otherwise, their powers are regulated to immigration matters, according to federal law.
Lemus and his coworker had just left their boss' home earlier this month when they were pulled over by officers, he told CNN. With Lemus' coworker at the wheel of their work vehicle and the 23-year-old in the passenger seat, agents approached their windows simultaneously and asked for identification, without providing any of their own, Lemus said.
'You look like someone we're looking for,' the agent says to Lemus, video of the incident shows.
Lemus declined to show identification several times.
If we don't get your ID, then we're going to have to figure out another way to ID you and that may not work out well for you,' the officer speaking with Lemus says on video.
Lemus said he was handcuffed and searched for at least 25 minutes until officers found his identification before he was released. The electrician believes he was pulled over because he and his coworker look Hispanic, a community that has often been targeted by Trump's mass deportation efforts.
Under the Fourth Amendment, Americans are protected from random searches unless law enforcement has probable cause to believe they're involved in criminal activity.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement to CNN, denied that Lemus was arrested or detained by ICE, and said he was not 'even searched or ever placed in handcuffs.'
The video made available to CNN cuts off after Lemus exits the vehicle and does not show whether he was searched or handcuffed.
'The facts are ICE conducted a targeted enforcement operation to arrest an (sic) criminal illegal alien with a prior conviction of assault. An individual matching the criminal illegal alien's description exited the surveilled location and got into a vehicle. For public safety, ICE law enforcement pulled over the vehicle and requested identification. Once it was confirmed that the criminal illegal alien was not in the car, Lemus and the driver of the vehicle were thanked for their cooperation and informed they were free to go,' the DHS statement reads.
'Because of the color of their skin, the accent in their voice or their ethnicity, people are being demanded to show their papers for no good reason,' Lemus' attorney, Fred Brewington, said during a news conference.
'With no probable cause, without reasonable suspicion,' he added, saying the targeting was 'reminiscent' of when Germany was under Adolf Hitler's dictatorship and people were required to carry identification with them at all times, a comparison Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made last month. Walz came under fire for likening the actions of ICE under the Trump administration to the Gestapo, the secret police force of Nazi Germany.
ICE will often detain individuals who they have probable cause to believe are undocumented, or if agents have a warrant to execute, then leave the rest of their fate to the courts, legal analyst Jackson said.
'Due process not only starts with giving people notice and an opportunity to be heard and hearings and respecting their civil liberties, but it kind of starts with stopping people, because there's a basis to do it,' Jackson said.
Nearly 3,000 miles away from Lemus on the opposite coast, Brian Gavidia has a similar story to tell.
Gavidia was working at a tow yard on June 12 in Montebello, California, where nearly 80% of the population is Latino or Hispanic according to US Census data, when he heard immigration agents were outside, he told CNN affiliate KCAL. When he went outside himself, an agent approached him. Although he told the officers he was an American citizen three times, they detained and questioned him about what hospital he was born in while they held him up against a fence, he said and video of the incident shows.
Gavidia said he couldn't sleep after the incident because even though an agent gave him his phone back after taking it away, he said, they never returned his Real ID.
'I am American,' he remembers telling an agent. 'I stated I was American. He still attacked me. We are not safe, guys, not safe in America today.'
CNN has reached out to an attorney for Gavidia.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a post on X that Gavidia was arrested because he assaulted US Border Patrol Agents, though the partial video attached to the post only shows him being held against the fence then handing his ID to the agents.
In a statement to CNN, DHS said it was conducting a 'lawful immigration enforcement operation' when Gavidia 'attempted to flee, assaulting an agent in the process. The subject was arrested for assaulting and interfering with agents during their duties.'
In the same operation, the tow yard's owner, Javier Ramirez, a single dad of two and a US citizen, was arrested and detained, his family told CNN affiliate KABC. Officials appeared to target him after he yelled out to his staff, 'ICE! Immigration,' when federal agents arrived on property. For hours after his detainment, Ramirez's family worried about his whereabouts as he was without his medication, Abimael Dominguez, his brother, told the station.
CNN reached out to Dominguez.
Video obtained by KABC shows only a portion of the incident and captures Ramirez sitting on the ground with his hands restrained behind his back. It's unclear what happened before or after the video.
In a statement, DHS said 'Ramirez was detained on the street for investigation for interference and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants.'
'These men did exactly what they were supposed to do,' American Immigration Lawyers Association President Jeff Joseph said. 'They stated clearly that they were US citizens and ICE proceeded anyways. They did not resist. They calmly stated their rights and asserted their citizenship.'
'We've got a lot of danger here when you have raids that are not really thought out … just to meet a daily quota,' with US citizens getting caught in the crosshairs, Shira Scheindlin, a retired federal judge, told CNN's Pamela Brown last week.
CNN has previously reported that the agency has been under pressure to meet quotas, with the White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller calling it a 'floor, not a ceiling.'
When asked about the quotas and methodology used in immigration sweeps, McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary, told CNN, 'We are not going to disclose law enforcement sensitive intelligence and methods. 70% of the arrests ICE made were of criminal illegal aliens.'
Just miles from where Gavidia and Ramirez were detained and days later, in neighboring Pico Rivera, California, 20-year-old Adrian Martinez was arrested by federal immigration agents following a physical altercation with them after a maintenance worker was detained at a shopping center.
Martinez, a US citizen, was on a break from work at a nearby Walmart. In video from the incident, he appears to drag the detained man's equipment cart in front of the Border Patrol agent vehicle, blocking it from leaving. A CBP spokesperson said the detained man was undocumented.
Videos from the confrontation show Border Patrol agents scuffling with Martinez, shoving him to the ground at least twice. Meanwhile, the maintenance worker had already been driven away by agents, according to Oscar Preciado, a delivery driver who captured some of the incident on video.
In a statement to CNN, a CBP spokesperson said Martinez punched an agent in the face and struck another agent in the arm after 'agents were confronted by a hostile group.' The statement also says the videos 'are missing critical moments and don't tell the whole story.'
'U.S. Attorney Essayli and U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino outrageously alleged that Adrian assaulted a federal agent. However he has not been charged with an assault charge because he didn't assault anyone, and the evidence of that is clear,' Martinez's legal team, Miller Law Group, said in a statement to CNN.
No punch by Martinez is easily visible in three videos reviewed by CNN, including the surveillance footage that shows the entire encounter.
An ICE directive from February 2025 requires ICE agents and officers to use body worn cameras — with exceptions such as when agents are undercover or on commercial flights — 'to capture footage of Enforcement Activities at the start of the activity or, if not practicable, as soon as safely possible thereafter.'
Martinez was 'standing up' for the detained man, according to Preciado, but Joseph of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said while the desire to intervene is a very natural, human reaction, getting involved can cause further problems and fighting back 'is only going to get you into worse trouble,' he told CNN.
'And those are the charges that ultimately are going to stick,' he explained. '… if you get aggressive and interfere, those charges are likely going to stick, because there's going to be proof.'
In May, acting ICE director Todd Lyons released a statement saying, 'obstructing federal law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties is a crime that jeopardizes public safety and national security.'
After he spent three days in detention, the assault charges against Martinez were dropped and 'he has been charged with conspiracy to impede or injure an officer, a felony,' according to his attorney.
Martinez's legal team called the charge 'trumped up' in a statement, saying it was 'filed to justify the federal agents' violent treatment of Adrian.'
A judge ordered his release from federal custody on a $5,000 bond, his attorney announced on Friday, sharing that Martinez is home and recovering after needing medical care for abrasions and bruising across his body from the altercation.
The anxiety that Lemus and others said they now carry with them as they try to resume their everyday lives isn't unique to their experience with federal immigration agents.
43% of Latino voters think others may fear immigration authorities will arrest people, even if they are US citizens, UnidosUs, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, found.
Jackson said with the Trump administration's broad immigration enforcement tactics, 'everything that's happening right now kind of offends the sensibilities of what you learn in law school.'
As for Lemus, every car that even remotely resembles the SUV the agents drove that day gives him pause, he said, noting he still doesn't know who the officers were, nearly a month after the incident.
'It just shows that even citizens don't got rights,' Lemus said, adding his friends and family are concerned that 'even though they were born here, they also think that it could happen to them too.'
CNN's Taylor Galgano contributed to this report.