Over 170 Americans Held by Immigration

"The government doesn't track how many citizens are held by immigration agents," ProPublica notes ahead reporting that it has determined that over 170 American citizens have been detained by immigration authorities under the Trump Administration.

ProPublica's highlights show inexcusable degrees of callousness, incompetence, and contempt for the right to due process:

• Americans Detained: The government doesn't track how many citizens are held by immigration agents. We found more than 170 cases this year where citizens were detained at raids and protests.
• Held Incommunicado: More than 20 citizens have reported being held for over a day without being able to call their loved ones or a lawyer. In some cases their families couldn't find them.
• Cases Wilted: Agents have arrested about 130 Americans, including a dozen elected officials, for allegedly interfering with or assaulting officers, yet those cases were often dropped.

Can you imagine being picked up for no good reason and not even getting to tell your family what happened?

You won't need to after reading the full report, which includes the story of George Retes, a combat veteran, whose commute to work abruptly ended with him being detained incommunicado for three days -- one of which was his daughter's third birthday:

"They broke his window, they pepper sprayed him, they grabbed him, threw him on the floor," his sister told a reporter between sobs. "We don't know what to do. We're just asking to let my brother go. He didn't do anything wrong. He's a veteran, disabled citizen. It says it on his car."

Retes was held for three days without being given an opportunity to make a call. His family only learned where he had been after his release. His leg had been cut from the broken glass, Retes told ProPublica, and lingering pepper spray burned his hands. He tried to soothe them by filling sandwich bags with water.

Retes recalled that agents knew he was a citizen. "They didn't care." He said one DHS official laughed at him, saying he shouldn't have come to work that day. "They still sent me away to jail." He added that cases like his show [Brett] Kavanaugh was "wrong completely."

DHS did not answer our questions about Retes. It did respond on X after Retes wrote an op-ed last month in the San Francisco Chronicle. An agency post asserted he was arrested for assault after he "became violent and refused to comply with law enforcement." Yet Retes had been released without any charges. Indeed, he says he was never told why he was arrested. [bold added, links omitted]

Retes and others are suing the federal government, as reported by ProPublica and the web site for the Institute for Justice:

George Retes, a U.S. citizen and Iraq War veteran, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies for three days and three nights. During that time, he was denied access to an attorney, was not allowed to make a phone call, was not presented to a judge, and was put in an isolation cell. He missed his daughter's third birthday. He was never charged with a crime.

Now, George has taken steps to sue the U.S. government under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) for his unconstitutional detention -- by submitting claims to the federal agencies involved. George is represented by the Institute for Justice (IJ), a nonprofit public interest law firm that recently won an FTCA case at the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I'm calling out the federal government not just for what they did to me, but for what they are doing to others," said George. "I'm continuing to fight for this country, now as a civilian."

I thank Retes and the others and wish them well, and hope to do my part by making their stories known to others.

Forget about the numbskulls who like whatever Trump does, and the nativist and racist losers who will enjoy these stories. There are countless people out there who -- not being obsessed with politics, and misinformed about immigration from every direction by news media -- could understandably think that Trump is doing a good job on immigration. These are the people who need to hear about this, because these are the people Trump is counting on to continue getting away with his abuses of power.

-- CAV