\n<\/p>\n
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they\u2019re published.<\/p>\n
Democrats in the House and Senate announced plans for a wide-ranging investigation into immigration agents\u2019 detention of citizens after a ProPublica story found that more than 170 Americans have been held by immigration officials this year.<\/p>\n
Minority leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate\u2019s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said the joint investigation into the detention of U.S. citizens and other allegations of misconduct by immigration agents would include a hearing in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver 170 U.S. Citizens are being arrested. Why? Because they look like me. Because they are of Latino origin. Or because they are suspected to not be a U.S. citizen, or because they are suspected of crimes they have not committed,\u201d Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the ranking Democrat on the House committee, said during a Monday press conference in Los Angeles with Mayor Karen Bass.<\/p>\n
Garcia said the investigators are demanding all records and documents showing how U.S. citizens are treated by immigration officials in Los Angeles and around the country. \u201cWe want to understand what they are doing in our neighborhoods, how it is being funded,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Our investigation found that at least 50 citizens have been detained based on questions about their citizenship as of Oct. 5. They were almost all Latino. Roughly 130 others have been detained after raids or protests on allegations of assaulting officers or interfering with arrests. Many of those cases have wilted under scrutiny.<\/p>\n
\n We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They\u2019ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days.<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n We found Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. At least two dozen citizens have reported being held for at least a day without access to a phone or a lawyer.<\/p>\n Bass and Garcia said the mistreatment of citizens has come amid the arrests of immigrants reporting for check-ins and immigration court, and the administration\u2019s repeated blocking of congressional attempts to visit and conduct oversight in federal detention facilities like the one in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important that we say today that what is happening to undocumented residents is also happening to U.S. citizens, which means this can happen to anyone, to all of us, at any period of time,\u201d Bass said.<\/p>\n Our article has also prompted members of Congress to write to the Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n In one letter sent on Monday to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Garcia and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said citizens in cities like Los Angeles have borne the brunt of the administration\u2019s aggressive immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe impact of these arrests has not been evenly distributed across the country, and cities like Chicago, Portland, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have been targeted,\u201d Garcia and Blumenthal wrote. \u201cTroublingly, the pattern of U.S. Citizen arrests coincides with an alarming increase in racial profiling \u2014 particularly of Latinos \u2014 which has been well documented in Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n DHS has not replied to previous letters.<\/p>\n Asked about the concerns from elected leaders, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin rejected claims that immigration agents have been engaging in racial profiling. She said in a statement to ProPublica that a temporary ruling by the Supreme Court in September had \u201cvindicated\u201d the administration \u201cwhether Mayor Bass or Rep. Garcia like it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDHS enforces federal immigration law without fear, favor, or prejudice,\u201d McLaughlin wrote. \u201cClaims by the media, agitators, and sanctuary politicians like Mayor Bass and Rep. Garcia that ICE is targeting U.S. citizens, making unconstitutional arrests, and \u2018trampling on civil liberties\u2019 are FALSE.\u201d<\/p>\n White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson told ProPublica in an email that \u201cunhinged rhetoric from activists and Democrat politicians\u201d was responsible for an increase in assaults on ICE officers.<\/p>\n On social media, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller derided Bass\u2019 press conference as \u201cabject lies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cViolent leftists have been arrested and charged with illegally obstructing federal law enforcement, a felony,\u201d Miller wrote Monday night on X. \u201cLet that sink in: open borders Democrats have incited leftists to violently attack ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n Of the cases we tracked through Oct. 5, we found nearly 50 instances where charges have never been filed or the cases were dismissed. Our count found at least eight citizens have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors, including for failing to follow orders. Others are still facing charges for more serious accusations, including for allegedly ramming an agent\u2019s car. (The driver has pleaded not guilty.)<\/p>\n Our account did not count citizens arrested later, after some sort of judicial process, or those detained by local law enforcement or the National Guard. That included cases of some people charged with serious crimes, like throwing rocks or tossing a flare to start a fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they\u2019re published. Democrats in the House and Senate announced plans for a wide-ranging investigation into immigration agents\u2019 detention of citizens after a ProPublica story found that more than 170 Americans have been held by immigration<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[4733,473,9169,581,17515,2081,1765,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-29700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-agents","9":"tag-american","10":"tag-citizens","11":"tag-democrats","12":"tag-detaining","13":"tag-immigration","14":"tag-investigate","15":"tag-propublica"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}