"Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a US citizen living in Alabama, was forcibly detained in May by immigration authorities while at a construction worksite. When confronted, Garcia Venegas told authorities that he was a citizen and showed them his Alabama REAL ID, his lawyers claim. But that didn't stop the authorities from tackling Garcia Venegas to the ground and putting him in handcuffs, they allege."
""I think that if you fit the demographic profile that they're targeting and you are a citizen, [authorities] view the 30 minutes or three hours or three days that you spend in custody as just a necessary cost of the current enforcement system and the quotas and the bonuses and everything that goes along with that," says Jared McClain, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which is representing Garcia Venegas."
Immigration raids have resulted in U.S. citizens being detained alongside undocumented immigrants. Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a U.S. citizen in Alabama, reports being forcibly detained at a construction worksite in May despite showing an Alabama REAL ID and asserting his citizenship. He alleges being tackled, handcuffed, and held in a car under the hot sun for over an hour and reports a second similar detention less than a month later. Garcia Venegas is suing the government. Advocates say enforcement treats detentions as acceptable collateral costs driven by system quotas and incentives. The Department of Homeland Security denies racial profiling allegations.
Read at WIRED
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]