Conservatives claimed that they were concerned about immigrants who are undocumented. Still, they've moved on from that, and now Trump's mass deportation efforts are disappearing people from the streets without due process -- even U.S. citizens are targeted. U.S.-born citizen Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed while at a job site in Foley, Alabama.
Noticias Telemundo aired the arrest, showing authorities grabbing Venegas, 25, while someone off-camera can be heard yelling, "He's a citizen."
NBC News reports:
Garcia told Noticias Telemundo that authorities took his ID from his wallet and told him it was fake before handcuffing him. REAL ID is the identification U.S. citizens are required by law to have in order to travel through airports and enter federal buildings. It is considered a higher security form of identification.
"Apparently a REAL ID is not valid anymore. He has a REAL ID," his cousin Shelah Venegas said. "We all made sure we have the REAL ID and went through the protocols the administration is asking for. ... He has his REAL ID and then they see him and I guess because his English isn't fluent and/or because he's brown it's fake, it's not real.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin alleges that Venegas tried interfering with an arrest, but Venegas denies that. This also doesn't address the issue of Venegas's REAL ID, which authorities claimed was fake.
Venegas told NBC News that he was trying to take out his phone when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent took it and threw it to the ground, and then an agent began grabbing him.
Venegas said Garcia's brother has signed deportation papers because the family didn't want him detained "forever" as they've seen happen to another family member, who was held for months in a Louisiana detention center.
"It's inhumane what they are doing to our people. They are treating them as if they were murderers," she said.
Venegas said the immigration arrests are creating repercussions among Hispanics, even among U.S. citizens.
"It's about race now. It's not about whether you are here legally or not," she said.
You can see footage of ICE agents forcibly taking down Venegas at the Foley construction site where he works below:
“He’s a citizen! What you’re doing is illegal!”
ICE raided an Alabama construction site and violently dragged a U.S. citizen from his workplace. He was detained, then released hours later. pic.twitter.com/mbiYDyGLEZ— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) May 23, 2025
Venegas was released, but would not have been the first citizen mistakenly deported.
