“Kavanaugh stops” in action: Among U.S. citizens harassed or detained by mass deportation agents include a six-year-old girl despicably used as human bait in order to lure her father
A disturbing Congressional report says that the nearly two dozen Americans interviewed by investigators “represent only a subset of the likely hundreds of American citizens” who’ve been targeted and harassed by ICE and CBP. The report, led by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, details “brazen lawlessness” where mass deportation agents have “regularly” rejected proof of citizenship and subjected Americans to racial profiling, excessive force, wrongful detention, fabricated charges, and reacted “aggressively” towards other exercising their right to record their actions.
This harassment campaign has been unsparing, even snatching up American children. In a case that made national headlines, mass deportation agents shamefully used a girl with autism as human bait in their attempt to seize her father.
“‘M’ is a six-year-old, United States citizen who lives with both of her parents in Massachusetts and is on the Autism spectrum,” the Congressional report said. “Her father has a pending asylum case and her mother has a pending request to obtain a legal status.” The child was being driven to a medical appointment when her dad realized they were being trailed by an unmarked car and turned back home. Thinking her citizenship would keep her safe, the father instructed the child to stay in the car while he fled to safety.
But rather than behaving professionally and presenting a warrant at the residence’s front door, mass deportation agents surrounded the child and taunted her anguished parents, including falsely claiming that the girl wasn’t an American.
“Your daughter was not born here, and we are going to take her away,” a mass deportation agent claimed. The child’s parents “repeatedly offered to hand the agents their ID through the door, but the agents declined, and one agent said, ‘You can do it right here,’” the report continued. During this time a local police officer arrived, at which the child’s mom again expressed willingness to show her ID. But the mass deportation agent again demanded she come out.
“Roughly ten minutes after the officer arrived, the agents decided that M would be taken away by the Department of Social Services,” the report continues. During her time separated from her family, “M” would become sick and was denied proper medical attention, Congressional investigators said. While the girl’s grandmother was able to pick her up later that day, “M” would get rushed to the ER and miss more than a week of school. “Her mother recalled, ‘She was very sick, but also just distraught, completely unaware of where she’d been or why she’d been taken away. She was extremely scared.’”
While it’s unclear exactly why the child fell ill, child welfare experts have said that even short amounts of family separation can be harmful to children. “Parent-child separation has long-term effects on child well-being, even if there is subsequent reunification,” said the Society for Research in Child Development.
But this family’s torment didn’t end upon their reunification. Just two days later, ICE came back to detain the girl’s dad, including a number of mass deportation agents who participated in using his daughter as human bait. “Remember me?” he said one agent asked. “This is all according to our plan,” said another. The family said “M” has been traumatized by the ordeal and constantly worries about ICE coming back. “Our daughter has had terrifying dreams. She wakes up screaming,” her mom said. “We have her regularly going to a therapist.”
Other harassed Americans in the report include Andrea Velez, a Cal Poly Pomona graduate who was dragged by masked men and jailed for two days despite trying to tell the mass deportation agents who were detaining her that she had identification in her purse. Her arrest was so violent that her mom and sister, who witnessed the incident, thought she was being kidnapped. George Retes, a disabled U.S. military veteran, was similarly dragged and detained for three days, “resulting in him missing his daughter’s third birthday,” the report said. Ceasar Saltos was waiting to disembark a cruise ship when CBP kicked down his door and accused of being somebody else. He was detained for almost 18 hours.
Meanwhile, construction worker Leonardo Garcia Venegas was targeted not once, but twice. During the first instance of harassment, mass deportation agents violently tackled Garcia Venegas to the ground despite him telling officers that he’s an American. During both incidents, mass deportation agents accused the U.S.-born construction worker of faking his REAL ID.
Keep in mind that in the Supreme Court’s shadow docket ruling giving the green light to racial profiling by mass deportation agents, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh claimed that the mistaken targeting of American citizens by ICE would be nothing more than a mild inconvenience. “If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go,” Kavanaugh claimed. Observers have since referred to this brutal harassment of American citizens as “Kavanaugh stops” and “Kavanaugh raids,” as Georgetown University and former Politico editor Garrett Graff noted at his Doomsday Scenario newsletter.
Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem has also questioned reality by falsely claiming during a Congressional hearing that “no American citizens” – including U.S. military veterans – “have been arrested or detained.” That would be news to U.S. citizens like Julian Cardenas, who was slammed to the ground and detained for three days after exercising his right to record ICE activity. “Although Julian was suffering from a concussion,” the Congressional report said, “pressure from the agents to quickly process Julian meant that the hospital did not administer brain scans or conduct necessary tests, so his condition went undiagnosed and untreated until his release.”
More recently, ICE detained and has so far refused to release Maryland-born U.S. citizen Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, claiming that her birth certificate and other documentation are fake, said Zachary Perez, one of the attorneys working on her case. “The thing that’s been the most difficult so far is that, in all of our interactions with the government, they’re denying that any of her birth certificates, which are from Laurel, Maryland, her records of immunization, medical records — they’re denying the authenticity of them,” Perez said. “It is something I’ve never encountered in all my work as an attorney.” She’s currently detained in Louisiana – a “deportation hub,” HuffPost reports – as of publishing time.
📍𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃: A Maryland woman was detained and moved to Louisiana, despite her attorneys giving ICE documentation to prove that she was born in the U.S., including a birth certificate. #AbuseofPowerWatch
— Abuse of Power Watch (@abuseofpowerwatch.bsky.social) 2025-12-19T17:28:51.600Z
Conditions inside these ICE detention facilities “have gone from bad to worse,” lawmakers and witnesses said during a shadow hearing led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) earlier this month.
“ICE has been arresting people at courthouses when they’re trying to follow the legal process. They are profiling immigrants around the country, picking people up for the language they speak or the street corner they hang out on,” Rep. Jayapal said. “So immigration detention centers are full of mothers and fathers and beloved community members while those who pose a threat are free. Amidst this surge in detention, conditions have gone from bad to worse with terrible overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, long waits to get medical help if received at all, and inedible food, described by some as ‘dripping with blood.’ Multiple pregnant women have been shackled and even suffered miscarriages due to their mistreatment in detention.”
The conditions in many immigration detention centers are horrifying.Inedible food. Individuals forced to sleep on the floor next to overflowing toilets. Pregnant women shackled and suffering miscarriages.It is a system designed to break peoples’ spirit, akin to torture.
— Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (@jayapal.house.gov) 2025-12-08T01:32:27.629Z
“The testimonials presented in this report represent only a subset of the likely hundreds of American citizens who have been unlawfully detained under the Trump administration,” the Congressional report said. ProPublica’s October report, for example, revealed more than 170 U.S. citizen victims of ICE. “They also do not account for the many Green Card holders, visa recipients, and others who have been captured,” the Congressional report continued, “and whose immigration status may cause them to be subject to even more severe treatment and harsher conditions than the appalling experiences of the Americans documented herein.”
“Americans should have a hard time recognizing our great nation in these stomach-turning, heartbreaking stories of brutal assaults on our fellow citizens,” said Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chair Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). “Masked ICE and CBP agents chillingly seizing Americans isn’t the nation we know and cherish. Totalitarian tactics have no place in our democracy. I hope that elevating stories of abhorrent abuse will reinforce our resolve to preserve democratic rights.”
