This Is Not a Mistake. This Is a System: The †rump Regime Is Deporting American Citizens — and You Could Be Next.

Detained during a protest, taken from FoxNews; Eric Thayer/AP Photo

Brian Morales is 25 years old. He was born in Denver, Colorado. He is a United States citizen. He told them that. He told three different agents that. He said he could prove it: his birth certificate, his Social Security card, his medical records, all of it, at home, available.

They threatened him with five years in prison for fraud if he did not sign the deportation papers.

He signed them. He told them what they wanted to hear. He was afraid. He has a daughter. He did not want to go to prison. And on April 7, 2026, the United States government deported a citizen of the United States to a place in Mexico he had never been before, and did not tell him where he was going until he arrived.

The †rump regime says it did not happen that way. The Depårtment of Hømeland Seçurity told reporters that agents determined through record checks that he was illegally in the country, and that he admitted to being a Mexican national. Morales says that is not true. He says he told them three times he was a citizen. He says they threatened him. He says he signed the papers because he was afraid.

We know this much for certain: a 25-year-old man born in the United States was deported from it.

Whether the regime is telling the truth or Brian Morales is, one of two things is true. Either the United States government deported a citizen under coercion. Or the United States government is lying about it. Neither option is acceptable.

And Brian Morales is not alone. Not even close.

Sign Here or Go to Jail: The Coercion of Brian Morales

According to detailed reporting by Univision correspondent Lidia Terrazas, Morales was stopped near Fredericksburg, Texas, while working with a construction crew. He does not speak English. He was born in Denver but taken to Mexico as a toddler by his parents. He returned to the United States as an adult, crossing legally using his birth certificate. He was in the process of obtaining his Real ID.

When Custøms and Børder Påtrol stopped the crew, Morales did not have identification on him. He told the agents he was a United States citizen. He said he could retrieve documentation proving it. Three separate agents, according to Terrazas's reporting, did not believe him. Instead of waiting for documentation, instead of allowing him to retrieve the proof he said he had, they threatened him with a fraud charge and five years in federal prison if he did not sign voluntary removal papers.

"He became so afraid of prison time, and of being unable to see his daughter," Terrazas reported, "that he signed the papers and told the officers what they wanted to hear." He was then placed on a deportation flight. He was not told where in Mexico he was being sent. When he arrived, he discovered he had been deported to a place he had never visited in his life.

Morales's employer was also taken into IÇE custody during the same operation, despite also being a United States citizen with documentation at home.

Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro said it plainly: "They're not just targeting undocumented Latinos," he told Univision. "They're often targeting any Latino and some U.S. citizens are going to get caught up in that."

Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America's Voice, called it what it is: "The continued examples of U.S. citizens being detained and deported are a built-in feature of the Trump and Miller mass deportation crusade," she said, "and the culture that prioritizes speed and quotas instead of accuracy, accountability or dignity."

Above the Law: When IÇE Ignores Federal Judges

The Morales case shows what happens when the regime moves fast and does not look carefully. The case of Chanthila "Shawn" Souvannarath shows something more deliberate.

Souvannarath lived in Arab, Alabama. He came to the United States before his first birthday, after being born in a refugee camp in Thailand. His father became a naturalized United States citizen in 1988, which under immigration law at the time would have granted Souvannarath citizenship as well. He has maintained that claim for over 20 years. IÇE detained him in June 2025 during a routine annual immigration check-in, in front of two of his five children, and transferred him to Camp 57 — the newly opened detention facility inside Angola prison, Louisiana's former slave plantation, repurposed by the †rump regime as an immigration detention center.

Representing himself, Souvannarath filed an emergency petition in federal court arguing his citizenship and demanding release. On October 23, 2025, Chief Judge Shelly D. Dick of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana agreed that his claim deserved to be heard. She issued a temporary restraining order explicitly and unambiguously prohibiting IÇE from removing him from the United States. She wrote that the potential removal of a U.S. citizen "weighs heavily against the public interest." She wrote that he would be "unable to effectively litigate his case from Laos."

IÇE deported him anyway.

According to reporting by the Times-Picayune and NOLA.com, the government later claimed it learned of the court order while Souvannarath was already on a flight to Laos. The ACLU argued that even then, the government should have turned the plane around or returned him once he landed. Instead, he was placed in detention in Laos — a country he had never been to in his life. The government then argued in court filings that because he was now in Laos, a foreign sovereign, the Louisiana court had no jurisdiction to order his return.

"This should shock the nation," said Nora Ahmed, legal director of the ACLU of Louisiana. "The deportation of an individual with a substantial claim to U.S. citizenship represents a catastrophic failure of the immigration system and a flagrant violation of constitutional rights."

"IÇE just ignored a federal court order and tore yet another family apart," said Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana. "This administration has shown it will ignore the courts, ignore the Constitution and ignore the law to pursue its mass deportation agenda, even if it means destroying the lives of American citizens."

A federal judge said no. The †rump regime deported him anyway. That is not a clerical error. That is a government that has decided it is not bound by the courts.

They Are Deporting Children, Including One With Stage 4 Cancer

On April 25, 2025, IÇE deported two mothers and three United States citizen children to Honduras. The children were aged 2, 4, and 7. All three were born in the United States. One of them, a 4-year-old boy identified in court filings by the pseudonym Romeo, had been receiving ongoing treatment for a rare and aggressive form of stage 4 kidney cancer at Manning Family Children's Hospital in New Orleans.

According to NBC News and the National Immigration Project, Romeo was flown to Honduras without his cancer medication. IÇE had been notified in advance of his medical condition. His mother, the lawsuit alleges, did not consent to her children's deportation and was not given the opportunity to make other arrangements for their care. She was held incommunicado. She could not reach her attorneys. She could not reach her family. She told her attorneys afterward that she had been given no choice.

The Depårtment of Hømelånd Seçurity said the mothers chose to take their children with them. The attorneys representing the families said that was false. One of the mothers, according to those attorneys, was allowed less than one minute on the phone before it was abruptly terminated. Another was given no access to a phone at all.

This was not an isolated case. In February 2025, a 10-year-old United States citizen girl receiving treatment for brain cancer was detained while traveling from Clint, Texas, to Houston for an emergency medical appointment. She was deported to Mexico with her parents. Separately, in Florida, immigration officials sent a notice to a mother instructing her to bring her U.S. citizen 11-year-old daughter — who has a life-threatening rare genetic disorder and would "not survive" without specialized treatment available only in the United States — to a check-in with tickets for a deportation flight to Mexico.

A federal lawsuit described IÇE's conduct in the Honduras deportations as "illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral." It documented that IÇE violated its own Directive 11064.3, which requires detained parents to have the opportunity to make custody arrangements for their children before deportation. IÇE, according to the lawsuit, did not follow that directive. It proceeded anyway.

The Pattern Is Documented and Escalating

None of what is described above is a series of isolated accidents. It is a documented, escalating pattern built on deliberate policy choices.

Tøm Høman, the †rump regime's self-styled "border czar," has confirmed on camera — multiple times, to multiple outlets — that IÇE conducts what he calls "collateral arrests": detentions of people who are not the intended target of an operation but who happen to be present when agents arrive. He told NBC News in January 2025 that collateral arrests "will happen" as enforcement escalates. He told CNN that when agents are looking for a criminal target and find others who are in the country without authorization, "they're coming, too." He told Fox Business that collateral arrests "are gonna be people who aren't criminals." He also said, on CNN, that he believed knowing your constitutional rights "impedes" law enforcement.

The scale of the system these policies have built is staggering. According to the American Immigration Council, the number of people held in IÇE detention rose nearly 75% in 2025, from roughly 40,000 people at the start of the year to over 66,000 by December. By the end of November 2025, for every one person released from IÇE detention, more than fourteen were deported directly from custody. A year earlier, the ratio was approximately one to two. The regime has engineered a system in which detention almost automatically leads to deportation — regardless of legal status, regardless of citizenship claims, regardless of pending court cases.

As detention has expanded, oversight has collapsed. According to an analysis by the Project on Government Oversight and American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop, IÇE published 36% fewer detention facility inspection reports in 2025 than the year before. The †rump regime gutted two key oversight offices within the Depårtment of Hømeland Seçurity. Hundreds of oversight employees were laid off. During the 43-day government shutdown in the fall of 2025, DH$ confirmed that its Øffice of Detentiøn Øversight was not working. Five people died in IÇE custody during that period.

2025 was the deadliest year in IÇE detention in over two decades. Thirty-two people died in IÇE custody in 2025 — nearly three times the number who died in 2024, and the highest total since 2004. The deaths included people who suffered seizures, went into septic shock, and died by suicide. Medical neglect, overcrowding, and insufficient staffing are documented as contributing factors across multiple facilities. The American Immigration Council reports that 2026 is on track to be worse. NPR reported in March 2026 that deaths in the current fiscal year were already outpacing the previous year's record pace.

The regime has also dramatically lowered hiring standards for IÇE agents. It dropped the minimum age from 21 to 18 and waived the 37-year-old maximum. IÇE has hired over 12,000 new agents since January 2025. Investigative journalist Laura Jadeed reported attending an IÇE career expo and being offered a job after six minutes without completing any background paperwork. More agents. Less training. Less oversight. More detention. Faster deportations. Fewer checks. That is the system.

170 Americans and Counting: The Detention of U.S. Citizens

The government does not track how many U.S. citizens are detained by immigration agents. There is no official count. No database. No accountability mechanism. So ProPublica built one. In an investigation published in October 2025, reporters compiled and reviewed every case they could find of agents holding citizens against their will — at immigration raids, at protests, at worksites, in their own homes. The tally, which they acknowledged was almost certainly an undercount, exceeded 170 U.S. citizens detained in the first nine months of the †rump regime. More than 20 were held for at least a day without being able to contact a lawyer or a family member. Nearly 20 American children were detained. Four were held for weeks with their undocumented mothers with no access to legal counsel.

Here is what those detentions looked like, drawn from ProPublica's reporting, a December 2025 Senate Democratic subcommittee investigation that interviewed 22 of the detained citizens, and court filings:

• Americans were dragged from cars by masked agents. Beaten. Tased. Tackled. Held outside in the rain in their underwear. One citizen, Anabel Romero, told congressional investigators that federal agents pointed guns at her 6-year-old and 8-year-old children, dragged her 14-year-old daughter out of a pickup truck, zip-tied her, and that an agent threatened to "f***ing blow your head off" during a raid at a rural Idaho racetrack.

  
  

• George Retes, an American combat veteran, was arrested during a massive IÇE raid at the marijuana farm where he worked as a security guard in California. He was held for three days. He had no access to a lawyer. His family could not find him. His only contact was a brief message he managed to send on his Apple Watch with his hands cuffed behind his back. He missed his daughter's third birthday in detention. According to ProPublica's reporting, agents knew he was a citizen. "They didn't care," he said.

  
  

• On September 25, 2025, approximately 300 DH$ agents supported by Black Hawk helicopters conducted a raid on an apartment building in Chicago's predominantly Black South Shore neighborhood. According to reporting by the National Immigrant Justice Center and court filings, agents broke down doors in the middle of the night, pulled people — some of them naked — from their apartments, and detained dozens of U.S. citizens. The stated justification was alleged gang activity. A court later found that many of the detentions lacked proper warrants.

  
  

• IÇE also arrested approximately 130 U.S. citizens, including a dozen elected officials, on charges of interfering with or assaulting federal officers. In case after case, those charges were dropped when video evidence contradicted the government's account. Senator Alex Padilla was grabbed by federal agents, pulled to the ground, and handcuffed when he attempted to question DH$ Secretary Kristi Noem about detained citizens at a public appearance. DH$ said agents "acted appropriately."

  
  

• At least three citizens were pregnant when detained. One had already had the door of her home blown off by agents while Noem watched. At least three citizens were detained while disabled or in medical crisis. The Senate subcommittee investigation found that agents "treated children with reckless disregard for their safety and wellbeing."

  
  

• Meanwhile, DH$ Secretary Kristi Noem stood before cameras in Gary, Indiana, and said on the record "No American citizens have been arrested or detained." That was November 2025. ProPublica's count of detained citizens had already exceeded 170. The Senate investigation had already documented 22 firsthand accounts. Noem said it anyway.

  
  

• The Supreme Court made things worse. In September 2025, in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, the Court issued a temporary order allowing immigration agents in Los Angeles to stop civilians based on race, language, place of work, and apparent ethnicity. Racial profiling is now legally sanctioned for immigration enforcement stops. If you are Latino in this country, citizen or not, federal agents may stop you based on how you look, how you speak, and where you work. That is the law, as of fall 2025.

  
  

The †rump regime has built a system in which being a United States citizen is not a guarantee of protection. If you look like what an IÇE agent has decided an immigrant looks like, you are at risk. That standard applies in every city, every worksite, every neighborhood in America. Including yours.

Americans Shot Dead. A Government That Answers to No One.

Just over three months ago, on New Year's Eve 2025, Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old Black father of two daughters, was shot and killed by off-duty IÇE agent Brian Palacios outside the Village Pointe Apartments in Northridge, California. Porter's family says he had been firing a newly acquired gun into the air to celebrate the new year — a practice that is illegal in California but widely observed as a tradition in many communities. DH$ told reporters that Palacios heard gunshots from his apartment, took his IÇE-authorized firearm outside, and that Porter pointed a weapon at him and refused to drop it. Porter's family disputes that account entirely. "Keith was a very loving person, and he also wasn't crazy," his cousin Jsané Tyler told reporters. "There is no way that he turned around and threatened the man with the gun."

The Los Angeles County coroner ruled Porter's death a homicide — cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds. Coroner Case No. 2026-00002. DH$ called it self-defense. The coroner called it homicide. Agent Brian Palacios has not been charged. The LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division is investigating. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Justice System Integrity Division is reviewing whether to prosecute. Community leaders have noted the obvious: if the shooter were not a federal agent, "we would expect that there would be an arrest." Porter left behind two daughters, ages 9 and 20.

On January 7, 2026, Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three young children living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was shot and killed by IÇE agent Jonathan Ross. According to PBS NewsHour and the International Bar Association, Good was sitting in her car, stopped sideways in the street, when Ross circled her vehicle. Other agents approached. One reached through her open window. Good briefly reversed, then began to move forward and to the right, into the direction of traffic. Ross, standing at the front-left of the vehicle, fired three shots through her windshield, killing her as the car moved away from him. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled her death a homicide. President †rump claimed she had "violently, willfully and viciously run over the ICE officer." DH$ Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Good was responsible for her own death. Eyewitnesses stated that federal officers blocked medics and bystanders from rendering aid after she was shot. Video of the shooting tells a different story. Congressional Democrats motioned to subpoena all records and footage related to the shooting. Republican members of Congress blocked the motion.

Seventeen days later, on January 24, 2026, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis, a licensed gun owner with no criminal record other than traffic tickets, was shot and killed by ÇBP agents Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez in downtown Minneapolis. Bystander video, reviewed and verified by Reuters, the BBC, the Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press, shows Pretti filming the scene with his phone. He stepped between an agent and a woman the agent had pushed to the ground. He was pepper-sprayed and tackled. Approximately six agents surrounded him. He was shot ten times in the back. One of the agents who was part of the group wrestling with him was captured on video applauding as Pretti was shot. DH$ officials labeled him a domestic terrorist and said agents acted in self-defense. The video directly contradicts that account.

In both cases, the regime moved to block accountability. After Good's killing, the U.S. Attorney's Office claimed exclusive federal jurisdiction and initially blocked Minnesota state investigators from gathering evidence. After Pretti's killing, federal agents physically blocked state investigators from accessing the scene. According to NPR's reporting in April 2026, Good's car, a key piece of evidence, remains shrink-wrapped in an FBI warehouse and has never been examined by state investigators. Minnesota and Hennepin County have sued the †rump regime, accusing federal officials of withholding evidence in all three Minneapolis IÇE shootings.

Then there is what the agents said. IÇE agent Jonathan Ross captured himself on his own body camera calling Renée Good a "f***ing bitch" after shooting her. Brian Palacios, the off-duty IÇE agent who killed Keith Porter, a 43-year-old Black man, has been accused in court records of using racist slurs about Black people and Latinos. During a court hearing, the children of Palacios's live-in girlfriend accused him of making racist remarks about Black and Latino people, beating his own children with a belt, and showing up to a child's soccer game with a gun. A judge barred him from contact with those children in February 2025. His ex-wife also accused him in court filings of assault. Porter's family attorney has called for the California Attorney General to investigate the shooting as a potential hate crime. Palacios has not been charged. None of the agents involved in DH$ shootings since June 2025 have been criminally charged.

The pattern of agents bragging about violence extends beyond Minnesota and Los Angeles. On October 4, 2025, in Chicago's Brighton Park neighborhood, ÇBP agent Charles Exum shot 30-year-old Marimar Martinez five times in the arm as residents confronted agents in the area. An unidentified agent on body camera footage was recorded telling Martinez "Do something, bitch" before Exum opened fire. In text messages entered into evidence, Exum wrote: "I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys." He continued: "Shit happens. I'm up for another round of 'f*** around and find out.'" He also wrote: "Sweet. My 15 mins of fame." Martinez was charged with felony assault. The charges were dropped by the Depårtment of Justiçe in November after video evidence contradicted the federal account entirely. Exum has not been charged.

This conduct does not occur in a vacuum. A publicly available IÇE use-of-force training document obtained by Business Insider states that it is a "myth" that deadly force can only be used as a last resort, and that "using the minimal force, exhausting all lesser means of force, or always giving a warning could create an unnecessary risk for the officer." The regime has built and trained a force of over 22,000 agents, many hired at 18 years old, some after six-minute interviews, and handed them a policy framework that treats restraint as a liability.

In February 2026, IÇE's Acting Director told a congressional committee that agents were working in the "deadliest operating environment" since the agency was created. He denied that people were being targeted based on the color of their skin. NPR asked DH$ whether any of the officers who killed Pretti and Good have faced any discipline. The department did not respond.

Three United States citizens. Killed by federal immigration agents. Keith Porter on New Year's Eve in Los Angeles — shot by an agent with documented racist views and a history of domestic violence allegations. Renée Good on January 7 in Minneapolis, shot by an agent who called her a "f***ing bitch" on his own body camera. Alex Pretti on January 24 in Minneapolis, shot while unarmed on the ground, while another agent applauded. Zero charges. Zero accountability. And in Minnesota, a state blocked from even gathering the evidence.

What This Means for You

You may be reading this in Missouri and thinking that Minneapolis is far away. That these are big-city problems. That this does not happen here.

Here is what Tom Homan has said, on the record, about who IÇE arrests: people "based on the location, their occupation, their physical appearance, their actions." That standard applies in Joplin the same as it applies in Minneapolis or Boston or Chicago. If you are a person of color in this community, if you have an accent, if you are present when IÇE decides to conduct a sweep, your citizenship is not a guarantee of protection. The cases in this report make that plain.

Southwest Missouri has Latino families. It has immigrant communities. It has mixed-status households where U.S. citizen children live alongside parents or grandparents who are not. When the regime conducts operations, it does not carefully verify documentation on the street. It detains people and sorts it out later, if it sorts it out at all. As the Morales case shows, sometimes it does not sort it out at all. It just deports.

The doctor's office. The hospital. The church. The school. The regime has rescinded the longstanding policy that protected sensitive locations from immigration enforcement. IÇE has conducted raids at or near schools, churches, and hospitals. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has given IÇE access to Medicaid patient data, including home addresses, to locate and detain immigrants. If your neighbor or your family member or your coworker is on Medicaid, the regime may already have their address.

This is not hypothetical. This is the system that exists, right now, operating without adequate oversight, with no meaningful accountability, and with the explicit backing of every elected Republican who has refused to speak out about it.

What You Can Do

Know your rights.

Every person in the United States, citizen or not, has the right to remain silent when approached by law enforcement. You have the right to refuse to consent to a search. You have the right to an attorney. You do not have to sign any document without consulting a lawyer. This matters more than ever. In September 2025, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo allowing immigration agents to stop people based on race, language, and apparent ethnicity. Even under that ruling, agents cannot force you to speak, cannot search you without consent, and cannot detain you indefinitely without cause. The National Immigration Law Center has free resources at nilc.org. The ACLU has Know Your Rights cards available at aclu.org/know-your-rights. Keep a copy. Share it with your neighbors.

Document everything.

If you witness an IÇE operation, you have the right to record it from a safe distance in a public space. Do not interfere with agents. But record. Video evidence has been the only check on the regime's narrative in case after case. It was video that contradicted the government's account of Alex Pretti's death. It was video that contradicted the government's account of Renée Good's death. It was video that got charges dropped against Marimar Martinez in Chicago after ÇBP agent Charles Exum shot her five times. ProPublica found that IÇE arrested approximately 130 U.S. citizens on interference or assault charges — and that most of those charges were dropped when video contradicted what agents claimed. Your phone is accountability. Use it.

Contact your representatives.

• Demand that Congress exercise oversight of IÇE. Demand hearings.

• Demand that the Øffice of Detentiøn Øversight be fully staffed and funded. Demand that IÇE be prohibited from deporting people with pending citizenship claims.

• Demand accountability for the deaths of Keith Porter, Renée Good, and Alex Pretti.

• Demand legislation prohibiting warrantless stops based on race, language, or appearance — and challenging the Supreme Court's Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo ruling that made racial profiling in immigration stops legal.

The easiest way to call your representatives directly is through 5calls.org — a free tool that connects you to your senators and representatives by phone and gives you a script for exactly what to say. Right now they have active issues including "Oppose Healthcare Cuts to Fund ICE and Illegal War" and "No War With Iran". You can also find your representatives through congress.gov/members/find-your-member or text RESIST to 50409 via Resistbot.

Support the organizations fighting this.

The American Civil Liberties Union (aclu.org), the American Immigration Council (americanimmigrationcouncil.org), the National Immigration Project (nipnlg.org), and the Detention Watch Network (detentionwatchnetwork.org) are fighting in courts and in Congress. They need support.

Use this script when you call.

You can adapt it to your own words, but here is a starting point. Give your full name and zip code so they log the call:

"My name is [your name] and I am a constituent calling from [your city/state or zip code]. I am calling about the federal government's treatment of United States citizens during immigration enforcement operations.

ProPublica has documented more than 170 U.S. citizens detained by immigration agents — kicked, dragged, beaten, and held incommunicado for days. The Senate's own investigation confirmed this with 22 firsthand accounts. DH$ Secretary Kristi Noem publicly claimed no citizens had been arrested. That was a lie.

Three U.S. citizens — Keith Porter, Renée Good, and Alex Pretti — were shot and killed by federal immigration agents. Video evidence contradicts the government's account in at least two of those cases. No agent has been charged. The state of Minnesota has been blocked from gathering evidence. The federal government is protecting the agents who did this.

A U.S. citizen born in Denver was deported to Mexico after being threatened with five years in prison if he did not sign removal papers. A federal judge ordered IÇE not to deport a man with a claim to U.S. citizenship. IÇE deported him anyway. U.S. citizen children — including a 4-year-old with stage 4 cancer — were deported without their medication and without their parents' consent.

The Supreme Court has now allowed immigration agents to stop people based on race, language, and appearance. IÇE oversight offices have been gutted. The Øffice of Detentiøn Øversight was shut down during a government shutdown while people died in custody. 2025 was the deadliest year in IÇE detention in over two decades.

I am asking [Senator/Representative name] to do the following:

• One — Demand a full congressional investigation into the detention, deportation, and killing of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents.

• Two — Demand the immediate return of Brian Morales, the U.S. citizen deported to Mexico in April 2026.

• Three — Demand full transparency and independent investigation into the killings of Keith Porter, Renée Good, and Alex Pretti, and an end to the federal government's obstruction of state investigations.

• Four — Demand legislation prohibiting immigration stops based on race, language, or appearance, in direct response to the Supreme Court's Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo ruling.

• Five — Demand that the Øffice of Detentiøn Øversight be fully staffed, funded, and operational, with mandatory inspections and public reporting on all detention facilities.

• Six — Demand that IÇE be prohibited from deporting any person with a pending citizenship claim until that claim has been fully adjudicated by a court.

These are not partisan demands. These are constitutional demands. I am a voter, and I expect a response."

Share this. Print it. Post it. Talk to your neighbors. The most powerful accountability tool available is an informed community that refuses to look away.

References

1. Who Is Brian Morales? Man Deported After Traffic Stop Says He's US Citizen | Newsweek, April 2026. Primary source for the Brian Morales deportation account, based on Univision correspondent Lidia Terrazas's reporting.

1a. We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They've Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days. | ProPublica, October 2025. Source for the count of 170+ U.S. citizens detained, individual cases including George Retes, the incommunicado detentions, and agent conduct during raids.

1b. Immigration Agents Have Often Grabbed and Mistreated Citizens, Congressional Investigators Find | ProPublica, December 2025. Source for the Senate Democratic subcommittee investigation, the 22 firsthand citizen accounts, Anabel Romero's account of the Idaho racetrack raid, Senator Padilla's detention, and DH$ Secretary Noem's false public claim that no citizens had been detained.

1c. Hearing on U.S. Citizens Caught Up in Immigration Raids | National Immigrant Justice Center, November 2025. Source for the South Shore Chicago raid, the Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo Supreme Court ruling allowing racial profiling in immigration stops, and documentation of warrantless arrests of U.S. citizens.

2. DHS Deported a US Citizen to Mexico After Threatening Him With Prison Time | The Independent / Yahoo News, April 2026. Additional detail on the Morales case including Congressman Castro's statement and the DHS response.

3. U.S. Citizen Racially Profiled and Summarily Deported: A Built-in Feature of Mass Deportation Crusade | America's Voice, April 2026. Source for advocacy response to the Morales deportation and documentation of related cases including Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales.

4. Report: DHS Deported a U.S. Citizen Arrested Near San Antonio | San Antonio Current, April 2026. Local reporting on the Morales case including Congressman Castro's full statement to Univision.

5. ICE Deports Man Claiming U.S. Citizenship to Laos Despite Federal Court Order | National Immigration Project / ACLU of Louisiana, October 2026. Primary source for the Chanthila Souvannarath deportation, including the court order and attorney statements.

6. Chanthila "Shawn" Souvannarath Deported to Laos Despite Court Order Blocking His Removal | Democracy Now!, October 2025. Source for Souvannarath's background, family situation, and the circumstances of his detention at Angola prison.

7. How an ICE Detainee Got Deported Despite a Louisiana Judge Saying He Might Be a Citizen | Times-Picayune / NOLA.com, November 2025. Source for the government's claim that it learned of the court order while Souvannarath was airborne, and the ACLU's legal argument that the plane should have been turned around.

8. Judge's Order Blocking Removal of Man From U.S. Wasn't Received Until After He Was Deported, DHS Says | NBC News, October 2025. Source for DHS's official response to the Souvannarath deportation, including the government's argument about jurisdiction over Laos.

9. ICE Deports 3 U.S. Citizen Children Held Incommunicado Prior to the Deportation | ACLU, April 2025. Source for the deportation of three U.S. citizen children, including the child with stage 4 cancer, and documentation of IÇE's violations of its own Directive 11064.3.

10. ICE Sends 3 U.S. Citizen Kids, Including Boy With Stage 4 Cancer, to Honduras | NBC News, August 2025. Source for details of Romeo's cancer diagnosis, treatment at Manning Family Children's Hospital, and the lawsuit filed on behalf of the families.

11. Attorneys Dispute Trump Officials' Claim That Deported Moms Willingly Took Their U.S. Citizen Children | NBC News, April 2025. Source for attorney statements contradicting DHS's claim of parental consent, including the account of the mother who said she "did not sign anything" and "did not consent to any of this."

12. Keith Porter, Killed by ICE Agent Brian Palacios | Hollywood LA News, January 2026. Source for the Los Angeles County coroner's ruling of homicide in the death of Keith Porter Jr., Case No. 2026-00002, cause of death multiple gunshot wounds. Documents the identity of the agent as Brian Palacios.

12a. "Stolen from Us": Family Demands Justice for Keith Porter, Black Father Killed by Off-Duty ICE Agent | Democracy Now!, January 2026. Source for family account, community response, and Black Lives Matter Los Angeles demands for accountability.

12b. Off-Duty ICE Agent Killed a Black Man in Los Angeles. Why No Arrest? | Sacramento Observer / Capital & Main, January 2026. Source for the LAPD Robbery-Homicide investigation, the LA County District Attorney's review, and legal analysis of whether state prosecution is possible under the supremacy clause.

13. A Second U.S. Citizen Was Killed by Federal Forces in Minneapolis | PBS NewsHour, January 2026. Source for detailed account of Alex Pretti's killing, bystander video descriptions, and DHS's initial statement.

13a. Killings by Immigration Enforcement Agents in Minnesota Expose Deepening Rule of Law Crisis | International Bar Association, February 2026. Source for description of Renée Good's shooting, the government's account vs. video evidence, and the broader rule-of-law analysis.

14. Months After the ICE Shootings in Minnesota, a Federal Probe Remains Elusive | NPR, April 2026. Source for Minnesota's lawsuit against the †rump regime over withheld evidence, the status of federal investigations, and the evidence the state cannot access including Good's car and Ross's personnel file.

14a. IÇE Agents' Racist Remarks and Misconduct Revealed in Court Records and Footage | Dallas

Weekly / Word in Black, March 2026. Source for IÇE agent Jonathan Ross calling Renée Good a "f***ing bitch" on his own body camera after shooting her; the court records documenting Brian Palacios's racist remarks about Black people and Latinos, domestic violence allegations, and prior restraining order; the naming of ÇBP agents Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez as the agents who killed Pretti, and video of an agent applauding during the shooting; ÇBP agent Charles Exum's text messages bragging about shooting Marimar Martinez in Chicago; and IÇE training documents stating that deadly force does not have to be a last resort.

15. 6 Deaths in ICE Custody and 2 Fatal Shootings: A Horrific Start to 2026 | American Immigration Council, February 2026. Source for the six ICE custody deaths in January 2026 and the context of both Minneapolis shootings.

16. Immigration Detention Is Harsher and Less Accountable Than Ever | American Immigration Council, January 2026. Source for the 75% increase in IÇE detention in 2025, the 14-to-1 deportation-to-release ratio, oversight cuts, and the expansion to tent camps.

17. ICE Inspections Plummeted as Detentions Soared in 2025 | Project on Government Oversight / American University Investigative Reporting Workshop, January 2026. Source for the 36% decline in IÇE detention inspection reports, the record 32 deaths in 2025, and the collapse of oversight during the government shutdown.

18. Trump Administration Deadlier for ICE Detainees Than COVID-19 Pandemic | American Immigration Council, November 2025. Source for documentation of individual deaths in IÇE custody, medical neglect, and the shutdown of oversight offices.

19. 2025 Is the Deadliest Year to Be in ICE Custody in Decades | NPR, October 2025. Source for death toll documentation, oversight office cuts, and former IÇE officials' warnings about the trajectory of deaths in custody.

20. Immigration Detention on Track for Deadliest Fiscal Year Since 2004 | NPR, March 2026. Source for 2026 death pace outpacing 2025 record levels and ongoing DHS refusal to respond to oversight questions.

21. Tom Homan: Sanctuary Cities Will See More "Collateral Arrests" | The Hill / CNN, January 2025. Source for Homan's on-record statement that collateral arrests of non-criminal people will occur and that IÇE will arrest people who are present when agents are looking for someone else.

22. Trump's Border Czar Admits ICE Is Arresting Plenty of Innocent People | The New Republic, March 2025. Source for Homan's Fox Business statement confirming "numerous collateral arrests" and his statement that people knowing their rights "impedes" law enforcement.

23. Immigration Enforcement Operations Ramp Up in Cities Across the U.S. | NBC News, January 2025. Source for Homan's confirmation to NBC News that collateral arrests "will happen" as enforcement escalates.

24. ICE Directive 11064.3: Interests of Noncitizen Parents and Legal Guardians of Minor Children or Incapacitated Adults | U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (IÇE), official policy document. The directive IÇE violated when it deported U.S. citizen children, including a child with stage 4 cancer, without providing parents the opportunity to make custody arrangements. The ACLU, National Immigration Project, and federal lawsuit all document that IÇE did not follow this directive in the April 2025 deportations.

25. ICE Expansion Has Outpaced Accountability. What Are the Remedies? | Brookings Institution, February 2026. Source for IÇE hiring practices, the 6-minute hiring incident reported by journalist Laura Jadeed, and the systemic accountability failures surrounding the Minneapolis shootings.