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As President Trump expands his aggressive immigration crackdown to more cities across the country, dozens if not hundreds of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents had been detained or arrested and sometimes held for days. NPR's Adrian Florido recently spoke with two of them about their experience.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: It's been five months since Javier Ramirez, a U.S. citizen, was tackled and arrested by immigration agents, but he still wakes up in the middle of the night gasping for breath, pumping his fists into the air as if he's fighting off an attacker.
JAVIER RAMIREZ: Panic attacks. I still feel that fear, you know, that it might happen again just for looking Mexican or, you know, Latino. They could again come up to me and just start questioning me.
FLORIDO: On June 12, masked Border Patrol agents out patrolling for immigrants to arrest walked into the auto junkyard east of Los Angeles where Ramirez was working. He saw them from the other side of the junkyard and walked through rows of broken cars to get to them.
RAMIREZ: I actually didn't see the guns or anything like that until literally I was literally close to them. That's when I'm like, oh, OK. Wow, people with guns? That means no, you know? Don't get close. You know, raise your hands.
FLORIDO: A security camera captured what Ramirez says is an agent telling him, in vulgar Spanish, don't be an idiot. Do you all have papers?
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: Then he alleges he heard one of the agents say to another one...
RAMIREZ: I just hear him, like, hey, just get him. He's Mexican. And that's when they threw me down to the ground.
FLORIDO: Ramirez struggled and pleaded to be let go. The agents moved him and other workers out to the sidewalk as a crowd gathered. His brother heard the commotion from his own tow truck yard down the street and came over and started to film.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: He's a USA citizen, my man.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Yeah, he's a U.S. citizen.
RAMIREZ: We're all U.S. citizens.
FLORIDO: The agents loaded Ramirez into a van. He recalls how he managed to use his cellphone to call local police despite being handcuffed.
RAMIREZ: I'm calling 911. Hey, what's your emergency? Like, hey, I'm being kidnapped. I'm in a black van.
FLORIDO: He says the dispatcher told him police had already been called about this but couldn't help because these were federal agents.
RAMIREZ: I'm like, if they are, I'm a U.S. citizen. Why would they take a U.S. citizen?
FLORIDO: Ramirez was held in a downtown LA prison for more than four days. He was charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer. But the charge was later dropped. Ramirez believes agents fabricated it to cover up for racially profiling him.
RAMIREZ: They pretty much seem like - you know what? - he's a U.S. citizen. We messed up. So in order for them to not look bad, they amended these accusations.
FLORIDO: Ramirez's lawyer is Michael Carrillo. He's also representing 10 other U.S. citizens or green card holders who've been arrested or detained by immigration agents. They're each seeking a million dollars in damages from the federal government.
MICHAEL CARRILLO: What's happening is that the Latino community - especially those with darker skin like myself, maybe that speak Spanish, listen to Spanish music - we are being racially profiled. What we've seen in these cases is that they stop, they detain people, sometimes arrest them, detain them for days and then ask questions later. That's not right.
FLORIDO: In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said allegations that its agents racially profile are, quote, "disgusting, reckless and categorically false." The department does not release data on how many U.S. citizens it has detained or arrested. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem recently denied that any have been rounded up.
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KRISTI NOEM: There's no American citizens have been arrested or detained. We focus on those that are here illegally. And anything that you would hear or report that would be different than that is simply not true and false reporting.
CARRILLO: Totally false. It's just wrong. If she were to call my office and talk to these 10, 11 citizens that we represent, they would say, hey, I've been detained. I've been arrested. I've been thrown in custody for five days. So, to me, it was an outrage to hear that.
FLORIDO: Last month, reporting by ProPublica found at least 170 U.S. citizens who'd been detained or arrested, though it was likely an undercount. Since then, there's been reports of others. Many have been let go within minutes or hours. Others have been arrested and held for days. Lawsuits alleging racial profiling and rights violations are piling up. Carrillo says he's outraged by the racism he says he sees - ICE and Border Patrol agents raiding places like car washes and Home Depots because they assume they'll find immigrants working there, using the fact that someone speaks Spanish to justify their suspicion that someone is here illegally.
CARRILLO: It's just like Andrea. They detained her and immediately started speaking Spanish to her.
FLORIDO: He's talking about Andrea Velez. In late June, her mother dropped her off at her job at a shoe company in downtown Los Angeles, just as immigration agents were raiding street vendors nearby. She looked up and saw a masked agent wearing a Hawaiian shirt running toward her as he chased someone.
ANDREA VELEZ: And that's when he grabbed me and he slammed me to the sidewalk. I just remember the impact of how hard it was because it took me a while to get up.
FLORIDO: The agent arrested her. As he restrained her, she says a bystander began recording.
VELEZ: He was filming, and he says, I'm going live. So that's when I proceeded to say my name and that I was a U.S. citizen. And then I even said my mother's name because I knew that maybe she was wondering - I was probably not going to come home that night.
FLORIDO: The agent who arrested her, and another one, drove Velez to the same downtown prison that Javier Ramirez had been taken to.
VELEZ: Once we got into the parking structure, they started talking to me in Spanish like they had not heard me before speak English. And I was like, I speak English, too.
FLORIDO: Velez was charged with assault on a federal officer and held for two days. Like Ramirez, the charge against her was eventually dropped. But for both of these U.S. citizens, the trauma lingers.
VELEZ: I still have a little bit of trouble just going outside by myself. Like, they could come, like, at any moment and just attack you again. And just trying to cope with, like, the anger of why? Why did it happen? Because it's not supposed to happen here.
FLORIDO: She started seeing a therapist to cope. Javier Ramirez did, too. He says his family's humor is also helping.
RAMIREZ: I have one of my cousins right now, and he's like, every time, hey, I brought you your soda just how you like it, without ice. So, you know, it's (laughter) - now they...
FLORIDO: But Ramirez is angry. He says his rights were violated.
RAMIREZ: ...You know, as U.S. citizens. And that's what actually makes me mad, you know, 'cause what's the whole point of the Constitution if they're not gonna go by it?
FLORIDO: He knows it'll be hard to hold federal agents accountable through claims for damages or lawsuits, but he says he has to try. Adrian Florido, NPR News, Los Angeles.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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