ICE Kidnapping of U.S. Citizens: Cases, Your Rights, and Legal Options

Since early 2025, federal immigration agents have detained, injured, and in some cases killed U.S. citizens during enforcement operations, and lawmakers, state prosecutors, and civil rights groups have described the pattern as the ICE kidnapping of U.S. citizens. ProPublica identified more than 170 citizens held by immigration agents in the first nine months of the second Trump administration, a count the outlet called “almost certainly incomplete” because the government does not systematically track these incidents.¹ A December 2025 report from the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations documented roughly two dozen cases between June and November 2025 and described them as “extrajudicial” detentions marked by unmarked vehicles, masked agents, excessive force, and denial of due process.²

How Widespread the Detentions Are

ProPublica sorted the more than 170 cases into two groups. About 50 citizens were detained after agents questioned their citizenship; nearly all were Latino. Roughly 130 more were arrested during raids or protests on allegations of assaulting officers or interfering with arrests, and in nearly 50 of those cases charges were never filed or were later dismissed. Only a handful of citizens pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors.¹ At least 20 citizens reported being held for more than a day without access to a lawyer or the ability to contact family. Nearly 20 American children were among those detained.³

The Senate subcommittee looked closely at 22 individual cases. Seven were held for more than 24 hours. One man, Javier Ramirez, was held for over 96 hours. Agents frequently filed assault or obstruction charges that were later dropped, and detainees were routinely denied lawyers, food, water, and medical care. Some were held even after presenting valid U.S. passports. On October 30, 2025, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem publicly stated that no U.S. citizens had been detained, a claim the subcommittee called “false.”²

What the Cases Look Like

The reported incidents cover a range of situations: home entries at gunpoint, sidewalk grabs, arrests at courthouses, and shootings by agents.

Home Entry Without a Warrant

On January 18, 2026, ICE agents entered the St. Paul home of ChongLy “Scott” Thao, a 56-year-old naturalized citizen, at gunpoint and without a warrant. They took him outside in subfreezing temperatures in only shorts, then released him about two hours later after realizing he was a longtime citizen with no criminal record. Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher opened a criminal investigation into the agents for possible kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment. Fletcher said the agents had allegedly used switched license plates, a state-law violation. DHS has called the investigation a “political stunt” and refused to cooperate. The investigation remains open.⁴⁵⁶

Sidewalk Grabs

Frank Miranda, a 46-year-old U.S. citizen born in California, was stopped by masked federal agents on October 2, 2025, while walking to work in Milwaukie, Oregon. When he refused to answer questions about his birthplace, agents threatened him with a dog, handcuffed him, and drove him to an ICE facility in Portland. He was released the same day without explanation. U.S. Representative Janelle Bynum called the incident a “kidnapping” and demanded a federal investigation.⁷⁸

Detention at a Worksite

George Retes, a 26-year-old Iraq combat veteran from Ventura, California, was detained on July 10, 2025, during ICE enforcement at a marijuana farm. Agents pepper-sprayed him, pinned him down, and held him in an isolation cell for three days. He was stripped, placed on suicide watch, and denied a lawyer or a phone call. He was released without charges. In February 2026 the Institute for Justice filed a federal lawsuit on his behalf under the Federal Tort Claims Act and California law, alleging Fourth Amendment violations.²⁹

Arrest of a Court Observer

Barbara Stone, a 71-year-old citizen and volunteer legal observer, was handcuffed and held for eight hours at San Diego immigration court on July 8, 2025. Agents accused her of pushing an officer, which she denied. No charges were filed. ICE confiscated her phone and compared the seizure to a “drug bust.”¹⁰¹¹

Shootings

On October 4, 2025, Customs and Border Protection agent Charles Exum shot Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen, five times in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood, leaving her with seven bullet wounds. DHS initially labeled her a “domestic terrorist” who had “ambushed” agents, but her attorneys said surveillance footage showed the agents’ SUV swerving into her vehicle. Text messages later revealed that Exum bragged to colleagues: “5 shots, 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” Federal prosecutors dismissed the assault charges against Martinez with prejudice on November 20, 2025. Her attorney has filed a federal tort claim, and federal prosecutors in Indiana were reportedly investigating Exum.¹²¹³

Two U.S. citizens were killed during a large-scale ICE operation in Minnesota that peaked in early January 2026. On January 7, 2026, ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good through her windshield in Minneapolis; DHS said she had “weaponized her vehicle.” On January 24, 2026, two Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse. DHS called him a “domestic terrorist.” State officials said video evidence contradicted both federal accounts. Federal agents took control of the crime scenes, physically blocking state investigators at the Pretti scene and seizing Good’s vehicle. Minnesota and Hennepin County sued the administration in late March 2026 to gain access to the evidence. As of mid-2026, no officer had been criminally charged in either death.¹⁴¹⁵¹⁶

Children

On January 20, 2026, ICE agents detained 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in a Minneapolis suburb shortly after he arrived home from preschool. ICE said the boy’s father fled on foot, abandoning him. School district officials gave a different account, alleging agents used the boy as “bait” to gain entry to the family home and refused offers from community members to take custody of him. The family had entered the country legally in 2024 and had a pending asylum case with no active deportation order. Liam and his father were later held at a detention facility in Dilley, Texas. Columbia Heights Superintendent Zena Stenvik said ICE agents had been “circling our schools, following our buses, and coming into our parking lots.”¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹

Your Rights During an ICE Encounter

Anyone in the United States, regardless of immigration status, keeps constitutional protections during encounters with federal agents. The distinction that matters most in home encounters is the type of warrant.

Under the Fourth Amendment, ICE agents cannot enter a private home without a judicial warrant signed by a judge. An administrative ICE warrant or a deportation order is not enough. If agents show only an administrative warrant, you are not required to let them in.²⁰²¹ Agents may not search you or your belongings without your consent or probable cause. Border Patrol agents cannot detain you without reasonable suspicion of a legal violation.

Under the Fifth Amendment, you have the right to remain silent. You are not required to answer questions about your citizenship or immigration status. If you are detained, you have the right to consult with a lawyer, although the government is not required to provide one in immigration proceedings.²⁰

Federal courts have started enforcing these limits. In Escobar Molina v. Department of Homeland Security, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. granted a preliminary injunction on December 2, 2025, ordering ICE to stop conducting warrantless civil immigration arrests without an individualized finding that the person was likely to escape before a warrant could be obtained. The court rejected the government’s position that “reasonable suspicion” was enough, holding that immigration arrests are civil matters requiring probable cause under federal statute. In May 2026 the court strengthened the injunction, barring the government from relying on an internal ICE memo that mischaracterized the flight-risk standard.²²²³ Similar class-action suits are pending in Ohio (Peralta v. DHS), North Carolina (Aceituno v. USDHS), and Minnesota (Hussen v. Noem).²⁴²⁵²⁶

Your Legal Options After a Wrongful Detention

If federal agents detain you unlawfully, several avenues exist, though each has limits.

The Federal Tort Claims Act is the most viable route for many claimants and is the basis for lawsuits by George Retes, Aliya Rahman, and Marimar Martinez. Aliya Rahman, a Bangladeshi-American in Minneapolis with physical disabilities, was pulled from her car on January 13, 2026, while traveling to a doctor’s appointment; she fell twice and was held without being told where she was being taken. Her legal team filed a federal tort claim in April 2026 and a separate 17-page complaint with the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in June 2026, alleging violations of disability rights laws and the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments.²⁷²⁸ Job Garcia, a citizen detained for over 24 hours after an ICE raid outside a Home Depot, has filed an FTCA case seeking $1 million.²⁹

Two other federal routes are narrower. The main federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, applies only to state or local officials, not to federal agents. The Bivens right of action, which allows suits against individual federal officers, has been “read so restrictively” by the Supreme Court that its usefulness is limited, and qualified immunity gives officers a further defense when they argue they acted reasonably.³⁰ A federal court in Florida did grant partial summary judgment to Peter Sean Brown, a natural-born citizen held on an ICE detainer at a sheriff’s request, ruling his Fourth Amendment rights had been violated.³¹

Can Federal Agents Be Charged With Kidnapping Under State Law

The Ramsey County investigation into the Thao arrest raised the question directly: can state prosecutors charge federal agents with kidnapping, burglary, or false imprisonment?

The answer is complicated. Under the Supremacy Clause, federal officers generally cannot be prosecuted by states when they act reasonably and within the scope of their lawful federal duties. That immunity has limits: courts have held that federal officials lose protection when they act beyond the scope of their duties, violate federal law, or behave in an “egregious or unwarranted” manner.³²

Even when a state files charges, federal officers can remove the case to federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 1442 if they present a “colorable federal defense.” The state prosecutor still runs the case under state law, but a federal judge and federal jury pool decide it.³⁰ There is precedent for this kind of confrontation. Idaho charged an FBI sniper with involuntary manslaughter after the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff, and a federal appeals court allowed the case to proceed because facts about the reasonableness of the officer’s conduct were genuinely disputed. The local prosecutor eventually dropped the charges.³²

Ramsey County Attorney Choi set an April 30 deadline for DHS to produce information about the Thao arrest, warning the county could sue or convene a grand jury. DHS refused to cooperate.⁶

Why This Is Happening Now

Several policy shifts under the second Trump administration expanded ICE enforcement in ways that increased encounters with citizens. On January 20, 2025, Acting DHS Secretary Benjamine Huffman rescinded the Biden administration’s “Protected Areas” memorandum, which had barred enforcement at schools, hospitals, and churches absent exigent circumstances. The new policy told agents to use “enforcement discretion” and “common sense” instead. A March 2025 court injunction partially restored the earlier policy for roughly 1,400 places of worship in 36 states.³³³⁴

Detention capacity grew sharply. By mid-January 2026, the daily ICE detention population reached a record high of more than 73,400 people. ICE opened 152 new detention facilities across 39 states during the administration and reactivated 170 more. About 74% of detainees had no criminal convictions as of February 2026. Federal immigration training for new agents was compressed from 16 weeks to eight.³⁵³⁶¹⁵

If agents come to your door, ask to see the warrant through the door or window and check whether a judge signed it. If they cannot produce a judicial warrant, you do not have to let them in. If you are stopped, you can say you wish to remain silent and ask for a lawyer. If you are detained and released, write down what happened while it is fresh, keep any medical records, and contact a civil rights organization or immigration attorney about a Federal Tort Claims Act notice, which must be filed with the agency before a lawsuit.

1
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2
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3
ProPublica. Immigration Agents Detained, Mistreated Citizens
4
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5
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7
Willamette Week. Bynum Demands End to ICE Raids After US Citizen Allegedly Abducted by Masked Agents
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Institute for Justice. George Retes Federal Officer Accountability
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WTTW News. New Evidence Contradicts Border Patrol Agents Claims in Shooting
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16
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17
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24
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25
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26
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27
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28
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29
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