U.S. Citizen Detained for Third Time by Immigration Agents in Alabama

Immigration agents detained a U.S. citizen for the third time this month near his home in coastal Alabama, according to a detailed account of the repeated stops. Leonardo Garcia Venegas was pulled from his car and shackled on May 2 after agents followed him home.

He presented his Alabama REAL ID, which is issued only to citizens and legal residents, but agents did not accept it as proof. The stop lasted about 15 minutes before he was released. Garcia Venegas told ProPublica the repeated detentions have left him demoralized.

"Honestly, it feels terrible," he said. He added that he experiences ongoing stress and depression from not knowing when agents might stop him again while driving to work. The latest incident follows two prior detentions last year. In the first, agents tackled him while he was filming his brother's arrest at a construction site and ignored his statements that he is a citizen.

Weeks later, an officer entered a home he was building and again questioned his REAL ID. Videos of those earlier stops circulated widely online. Garcia Venegas subsequently testified before Congress and filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to halt what his lawyers call unconstitutional raids in the area.

Days after the latest detention of Garcia Venegas, masked agents tackled an American teenager in the Bronx. After realizing he was a citizen, they left him in an unfamiliar neighborhood with injuries. At a border security conference in Phoenix the same week, federal officials addressed questions about mistaken detentions of citizens.

One senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official stated that since the start of the current administration, agents had not arrested any U.S. citizens based on false identification. " He described such arrests as operating as a deterrent. However, video evidence and prior reporting have at times contradicted claims that agents were assaulted.

In response to questions about the Alabama case, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the May 2 event was a routine vehicle stop on a car registered to an undocumented immigrant. After Garcia Venegas' identity was confirmed he was released, the spokesperson said, adding that he was not detained.

The agency described its operations as highly targeted and denied mistakenly arresting U.S. citizens. Garcia Venegas said officers at the scene attributed the stop to his driving a vehicle registered to his brother. He was told he could face future stops unless he registers the license plates in his own name.

Court filings in his lawsuit quote him responding that agents could have immediately verified his identity using the REAL ID he held when pulled from the truck.

Follow Supreme Court Precedent on Immigration Enforcement

The repeated stops of Garcia Venegas share characteristics with what Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh described last fall in an opinion. Agents may consider factors including apparent ethnicity, type of employment and primary language when deciding to conduct immigration stops.

Kavanaugh wrote that once citizenship is established, officers must promptly release the individual. Garcia Venegas, who was born in Florida and graduated from high school in the Alabama county where the stops occurred, primarily speaks Spanish and works in construction.

He has considered moving to his family's home in Mexico to live without fear of repeated detention. His lawyers updated the pending lawsuit with details of the third incident. Government lawyers have maintained that the immigration enforcement actions are based on reasonable suspicion, probable cause and comply with the Constitution.

Garcia Venegas separately filed an administrative claim for damages that ICE denied in mid-April without explanation. His third detention occurred roughly two weeks later. The head of Customs and Border Protection was asked at the Phoenix conference about reporting on citizen detentions and agency responses.

He stated that the agency arrests criminals and does not take actions that would avoid arresting U.S. citizens who meet that description. ProPublica continues to track cases of U.S. citizens detained during immigration enforcement operations. " — Leonardo Garcia Venegas (ProPublica, May 2026) The case highlights ongoing tension between targeted enforcement claims and documented incidents involving verified citizens, even after congressional attention and litigation.