ICE Arrested a U.S. Citizen—Twice—During Alabama Construction Site Raids. Now He's Suing.

“I got arrested twice for being a Latino working in construction,” says Leo Garcia Venegas, the lead plaintiff in a new lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice challenging warrantless ICE raids on construction sites.

An Alabama construction worker is challenging the Trump administration's warrantless construction site raids after he says he was arrested and detained by federal immigration agents—twice—despite being a U.S. citizen with a valid ID in his pocket.

In a federal civil rights lawsuit filed today in the Southern District of Alabama, Leo Garcia Venegas is seeking to stop "dragnet raids" that target Latinos like himself, without any probable cause besides their ethnicity. 

"It feels like there is nothing I can do to stop immigration agents from arresting me whenever they want," Venegas said in a press release by the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that filed the suit on his behalf. "I just want to work in peace. The Constitution protects my ability to do that."

Venegas and the Institute for Justice argue that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policies allow immigration agents to illegally raid private construction sites, detain workers without reasonable suspicion, and continue detaining them even after they offer evidence of citizenship or legal status. All of this, they say, violates the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

"Armed and masked federal officers are raiding private construction sites in Alabama, detaining whoever they think looks undocumented, and ignoring proof of citizenship," Jared McClain, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, said in the press release. "That's unconstitutional, and this case seeks to bring that practice to an end."

Venegas was detained twice in May and June during raids on private construction sites where he was working. In both instances, the lawsuit says, masked immigration officers entered the private sites without a warrant and began detaining workers based solely on their apparent ethnicity.

On May 21, Venegas was working on a concrete crew at a construction site in Baldwin County, Alabama, when immigration officers hopped the fence into the site. According to the suit, "The officers ran right past the white and black workers without detaining them and went straight for the Latino workers."

The officers tackled Venegas' brother, who was also on the crew, and Venegas began filming the scene on his cell phone. One of the officers then approached Venegas and said, "You're making this more complicated than you want to."

Immediately after, the officer grabbed Venegas and began wrestling him to the ground. Another construction worker also took cell phone video of the two brothers' arrests, which shows the agent struggling with Venegas who repeatedly yells, "I'm a citizen."

Two other officers joined in to subdue Venegas, telling him to "Get on the fucking ground."

Watch the Institute Justice's video on the case, which includes footage of the arrest:

According to the suit, the officers retrieved Venegas' REAL ID from his pocket, but they called it fake, kept him handcuffed, and detained for more than an hour in the Alabama summer sun, until an officer agreed to run his social security number.

Then on June 12, Venegas was working in a nearly finished house when ICE agents cornered him in a bedroom and ordered him to come with them. Venegas was marched outside to the edge of the subdivision where he was working to have his immigration status checked. According to the lawsuit, two other U.S. citizens had been rounded up with him. Again, officers said his REAL ID could be fake and detained for 20 to 30 minutes before releasing him.

The Institute for Justice says in its lawsuit on Venegas' behalf that this sort of behavior is "no accident." It's explicit DHS policy.

"Under DHS's challenged policies, immigration officers are authorized to presume that construction workers on private property are undocumented based only on their demographic profile and occupation, and can disregard evidence to the contrary—like Leo's telling them he's a citizen and presenting a REAL ID."

The lawsuit asks the court to block enforcement of the policy and award damages to Venegas, as well as a proposed class of similar plaintiffs, for violations of Fourth Amendment rights.

Venegas is one of many documented cases of U.S. citizens being violently detained and arrested during indiscriminate federal immigration sweeps. The Institute for Justice is also representing George Retes, an Army veteran and U.S. citizen. Retes says he was pepper-sprayed, dragged out of his car and thrown on the ground during a July raid on a legal marijuana company in California. Despite being a citizen, he alleges he was detained by ICE for three days, during which he says he was kept in solitary confinement, not allowed a phone call or lawyer, and never presented before a judge.

On August 20, five U.S. citizens in Southern California filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security over their arrests by immigration agents. One of the plaintiffs, Cary Lopez Alvarado, was nine months pregnant when ICE and U.S. Border Protection agents arrested and shackled her. She alleges she went into labor prematurely as a result of her wrongful arrest and assault.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court gave its blessing to just this kind of racial profiling by immigration officers, overturning a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that found the Trump's administration was likely violating the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens by seizing them based solely on factors such as "apparent race or ethnicity." 

Justice Brett Kavanaugh released a concurring opinion in which he waved away concerns that allowing such profiling would lead to citizens and legal residents being unduly harassed.

"As for stops of those individuals who are legally in the country, the questioning in those circumstances is typically brief," Kavanaugh wrote, "and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U. S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States."

Whatever world Kavanaugh is describing, it's not the one that Venegas lives in.

"The raids continue in the neighborhoods," Venegas says in the Institute for Justice video. "I live in fear every day that when I get to work it will happen again."

In a statement provided to Reason, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called Venegas' lawsuit "baseless" and said it was "race-baiting opportunism" that contributed to an alleged 1,000 percent increase in assaults on ICE officers.

"Allegations that DHS law enforcement officers engage in 'racial profiling' are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE," McLaughlin said. "What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S.—NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity. Under the fourth amendment of the U.S. Constitution, DHS law enforcement uses 'reasonable suspicion' to make arrests. There are no 'indiscriminate stops' being made. The Supreme Court recently vindicated us on this question. DHS enforces federal immigration law without fear, favor, or prejudice."

The DHS Office of Public Affairs did not respond to a follow-up questions of why, then, Venegas was targeted if he was a U.S. citizen and what reasonable suspicion officers had to detain him twice, including after he presented a valid ID.