The growing list of ICE violations against U.S. citizens includes nearly 20 American children—including two with cancer
It’s hard not to see the all-too-often brutal footage of ICE wrongfully targeting our citizens and our neighbors – unless you’re the Speaker of the House. Mike Johnson, one of the top Republicans in the entire country, has drawn some side-eye after claiming that he’s yet to see any proof of the mass deportation agency crossing the line. If he just opened his eyes he would witness a rampage violating the due process rights of immigrant contributors and U.S. citizens alike. Seriously, Mike, just turn on the tv.
“We’ve seen images out of Chicago of federal agents shooting faith leaders with pepper balls and arresting journalists,” a reporter said during a press conference last week. “Where’s the limit for you on what’s acceptable conduct by federal law enforcement? And when is it incumbent on Congress to amend oversight on federal law enforcement?”
“‘I’ve not seen them cross the line yet,’ Johnson replied, saying that there were some committees with jurisdiction over federal law enforcement,” The New Republic reported. “It’s not risen to that level.”
Q: We've seen images out of Chicago of federal agents shooting faith leaders with pepper balls and arresting journalists. Where's the limit for you on what's acceptable conduct by federal agents?MIKE JOHNSON: I've not seen them cross the line yet.
That federal agents have apparently not crossed the line likely comes to a surprise to the numerous faith leaders who’ve been shot with pepper balls for expressing their constitutional rights of assembly and religious freedom – including one clergy member who said that she’s been repeatedly hit. Rev. Hannah Kardon “said she has been shot multiple times with pepper bullets, including while she was praying with her eyes closed and hands lifted, wearing a clerical collar and stole,” Religion News Service reported Oct. 7.
DHS didn’t comment on targeting the faith leaders, and instead sent a statement claiming that the protesters were “rioters,” the outlet said. Actually, this is what a rioter looks like. Rev. Kardon makes clear that she and others were peacefully demonstrating when federal agents were the ones who became the agitators.
“Every time we have been attacked with pepper bullets or tear gas or pepper spray that I have been present, it has felt like it came from anger that we were there, and not from any determined safety need or protocol,” Rev. Kardon told Religion News Service. “They are unhinged.” And as a Portland Police Bureau assistant chief recently said in court, federal agents have been “instigating” violence.
📍 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋:Over 170 U.S. citizens have been arrested and detained by immigration agents — kicked, dragged, held for days — often without access to lawyers or explanation. The government doesn’t even track how often this happens. #AbuseofPowerWatch
— Abuse of Power Watch (@abuseofpowerwatch.bsky.social) 2025-10-17T15:09:56.158Z
You’d think that with the government shutdown (unless you happen to be helping Stephen Miller separate families) and his ongoing refusal to swear in Arizona’s first Latina congress woman, Johnson would’ve had a chance to at least read the ProPublica report revealing how immigration agents have crossed the line by harassing and detaining more than 170 U.S. citizens during the first nine months of Trump’s term (and the true number is likely far higher, since the federal government refuses to track these violations).
“Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents,” ProPublica reports. “They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched.”
ProPublica further reveals that nearly 20 of these Americans have been children, including two with cancer. “That includes four who were held for weeks with their undocumented mother and without access to the family’s attorney until a congresswoman intervened.” You don’t have to take it from us, Mr. Speaker. There are examples everywhere of the line being crossed.
In June, ICE agents dressed in full tactical gear blew the front door off a home in order to violently arrest U.S. citizen and expectant mom Sabrina Medina, who was getting back from a pregnancy check-up. Medina, who said that agents had repeatedly stalked her in order to locate her husband, said that agents also threatened her undocumented mom with “federal time” if she didn’t aid them. “Cameras in her home captured ICE’s raid, which included masked agents storming her Huntington Park house with rifles in hand,” The Daily Beast reported.
Medina “alleges an agent turned an outdoor surveillance camera away from what was transpiring—an act she caught on camera and shared with KTLA.”
Or Speaker Johnson may want to read up on the case of Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen and Chicago resident who was shot five times by Border Patrol agents. Body-camera footage showed an officer taunting the American with “Do something, bitch” before pulling over and shooting Martinez, contradicting official claims that she drove toward officers (this isn’t the first time they’ve been dishonest). Martinez’s attorney told the Chicago Sun-Times that “agents were in such a hurry to take her into custody at the hospital that they had to return later when Martinez began bleeding from her wounds.” She thankfully survived her injuries.
Then just days ago, three teenage U.S. citizens in Cook County, Illinois were held for hours despite trying to tell federal agents that they’re Americans. Footage showed agents violently pulling one of the teens, 18-year-old Evelyn, from the passenger side of a vehicle. “She is then thrown to the ground, all while saying she is not resisting arrest, as the officer handcuffed her and appeared to put a knee on her back,” CBS News Chicago reported. Once again, officials denied the “horrific ICE arrest by straight up lying about it,” The New Republic said.
The teens “were telling them they were U.S. citizens, and they didn’t care,” her mom told CBS News Chicago. “It was very scary to see that video.” Unlike Speaker Johnson, Evelyn’s mom might agree that federal agents have indeed crossed the line.
Speaker Johnson also stated during the press event that there were House committees with jurisdiction over federal law enforcement. This is true – and he should have them look into how ICE is blocking his own members from conducting detention oversight and blocking the rest of us from exercising our constitutional rights, like being able to record ICE activity as long as it doesn’t interfere with enforcement operations. “Daniel Montenegro was filming a raid at a Van Nuys, California, Home Depot with other day-laborer advocates this summer when, he told ProPublica, he was tackled by several officers who injured his back,” the outlet reported.
Montenegro was then accused by a top Border Patrol official “of using homemade tire spikes to disable vehicles.”
Montenegro has no idea what the heck he’s talking about, nor has he actually been charged with any wrongdoing. “I had no idea where that story came from,” he told ProPublica. “I didn’t find out until we were released. People were like, ‘We saw you on Twitter and the news and you guys are terrorists, you were planning to slash tires.’ I never saw those spike tire-popper things.”
Q: What's your message to the 170 US citizens who have been detained by ICE? About 20 of them are childrenMIKE JOHNSON: I don't know what you're talking about with the children. I haven't seen that so I'm not going to comment on it.
Following ProPublica’s report on the more than 170 U.S. citizens targeted by ICE, Speaker Johnson again feigned ignorance, prompting The New Republic to question what he does know. “This is far from the first time Johnson has played dumb about a question, as he continues to conduct daily propaganda press briefings during the ongoing government shutdown. ‘I don’t know’ has become his answer for everything.” Johnson repeated this ploy on Wednesday when questioned about reports that the president is seeking to give himself a $230 million settlement from the Department of Justice.
Here’s what we also know: when the rights of some are threatened and violated, it poses a risk to the rights of all. Yesterday it was Maryland dad Kilmar Ábrego García. Tomorrow it could be any one of us, as the experts said. Leo Garcia Venegas, a U.S. citizen and construction worker in Alabama, has already been wrongfully detained twice. Recall that in last month’s shadow docket ruling giving the green light to racial profiling by federal immigration agents, Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh insisted that any wrongful targeting of American citizens by ICE would prove nothing more than a mild inconvenience. “Welcome to the era of ‘Kavanaugh Raids,’” as Georgetown University and former Politico editor Garrett Graff wrote at his Doomsday Scenario newsletter.
“When federal officers roll through communities in the way the Supreme Court permitted, the constitutional rights of both citizens and noncitizens are inevitably violated, argued David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute,” ProPublica continued. “He recently analyzed how sweeps in Los Angeles have led to racial profiling. ‘If the government can grab someone because he’s a certain demographic group that’s correlated with some offense category, then they can do that in any context.’”
“Cody Wofsy, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, put it even more starkly. ‘Any one of us could be next.’”
