DHS data capture puts US citizens at risk
As migration attacks has swept the country, it is not just immigrants who have been kidnapped and detained. American citizens are also involved in the strict policies of the Trump administration.
Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a US citizen living in Alabama, was forcibly detained by immigration officials in May while at a construction site. His attorneys allege that Garcia Venegas told authorities he was a citizen and showed them his real Alabama ID when confronted. But that didn’t stop authorities from knocking Garcia Venegas to the ground and putting him in handcuffs, they claim. In a lawsuit, Garcia Venegas says he was handcuffed in the back of a car “in the hot Alabama sun” for more than an hour.
Less than a month later, García Venegas says he was arrested again at a workplace. His attorneys allege that while handcuffing him this time, immigration officials ignored the fact that Garcia-Vengas told them he was a citizen and again provided them with a real ID.
García Venegas is now suing the government. In his court statement, Garcia Venegas says an officer told him his ID was “fake.”
“I think if you fit the profile of the demographic they’re targeting and you’re a citizen, [authorities] Think of the 30 minutes or three hours or three days you spend in custody as just a necessary cost of the current enforcement system and the quotas and bonuses and everything that goes with it, says Jared McClain, a senior attorney at the Institute of Justice who is representing Garcia Venegas.
“Claims that DHS law enforcement officers engage in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless and flat-out false. What makes someone in the United States illegally — not their skin color, race or ethnicity. Under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, the United States ‘uses the Constitution to enforce the Constitution.'” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant public affairs officer at DHS, told WIRED.
Cases like this are unfortunately not unique. At least 170 US citizens have been detained by immigration officials in the first nine months of 2025, according to ProPublica. And it could get much worse: The US government is rapidly combining data from federal agencies that could put more people, including US citizens, in the crosshairs of its tough immigration policies.
WIRED first reported in April that the Trump administration has been collecting data from across the government in an effort to monitor and track immigrants, and it’s only going from there.
