A September 2025 view of Drumgoon Dairy, which Dorothy and Rodney Elliott opened in 2006 near Lake Norden, South Dakota. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

LAKE NORDEN — The names on the list included some of Dorothy Elliott’s best employees: hardworking, reliable, honest.

Most had been working at Drumgoon Dairy for years. Some worked there for nearly two decades, playing a role in the operation’s expansion and success.

But after an audit of the dairy at the end of May by the federal Department of Homeland Security, 38 of those employees are gone.

The department said they each had inaccurate, outdated or incomplete proof of U.S. citizenship or permission to work in the country.

Elliott co-owns the farm near Lake Norden, 5 miles from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s eastern South Dakota home. Elliott asked the affected employees for updated documentation but ultimately had to fire those who weren’t able to adequately resolve the problems with their documents. One person returned home because his visa was expiring, and another quit.

The audit decimated Elliott’s workforce, once more than 50 employees, dropping it to just 16.

Audits at dairy farms under the Trump administration’s escalated immigration enforcement efforts have “created unrest” among workers and owners, Elliott said. It’s made for a tough summer in an industry that was flourishing after decades of support from state government.

Elliott’s remaining employees have been working without breaks, she said. Without a pathway or plan to create a sustainable workforce in agriculture and by “removing everyone working in it,” she worries some agricultural operations will go out of business. She hopes Drumgoon isn’t one of them.

“Basically, we’ve turned off the tap, but we’ve done nothing to create a solution as to how we find employees for the dairy industry,” she said.

Never previously audited

Elliott is required to file I-9 forms with documentation proving her workers’ identity and eligibility to work in the U.S. It puts employers in a difficult position, said Scott VanderWal, president of the South Dakota Farm Bureau, because applicants may present fraudulent documents an employer doesn’t catch. Yet employers could also be sued for mistakenly rejecting valid documents.

“If employers are presented with documentation that looks real and legitimate, they’re obligated to accept it,” VanderWal said. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offers similar guidance, saying employers must accept documentation if it “reasonably appears to be genuine.”

Elliott could use the federal government’s web-based system, E-Verify, that allows employers to confirm their employees’ eligibility to work in the country. But E-Verify is not mandated for new hires in South Dakota, and Elliott said she doesn’t use it because of “unreliable results.” Organizations ranging from the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute to the American Civil Liberties Union have opposed the use of E-Verify, citing reasons including errors that cost people jobs because the system wrongly flagged them. 

So Elliott evaluates applicants’ documents herself. If their IDs are out of date or if they have a visa and are applying from another farm without returning home, she passes on hiring them. She’s turned people away a dozen times over the years, she said.

Drumgoon was never audited before. In her past dealings with the Department of Homeland Security during nearly two decades of running the dairy, Elliott said, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would merely tell her they were searching for a person and ask for a notification if the person applied for a job. 

This time was different. After an audit, employers are required to terminate unauthorized workers who can’t prove their employability, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson. Audits — which are distinct from raids or other immigration enforcement operations — are meant to ensure businesses comply with federal employment laws. 

Elliott does not know where her 38 former employees went. They could be working at other dairies in the U.S. They could have left the country. They could be anywhere.

Because the dairy is near a farm owned by Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, and because Noem was in the state during the month of the audit to receive an honorary degree, South Dakota Searchlight asked the Department of Homeland Security if Noem had a direct role in the audit. The department didn’t respond to the question.

Elliott declined to talk about Noem, saying she recognizes that federal immigration authorities “have a job to do.” 

South Dakota Farmers Union President Doug Sombke called federal dairy audits “stupid,” because they needlessly displace workers. 

“Why the heck can’t we continue to use them there as an intern or apprentice or whatever you want to call it and make it legal? Why is it so important we grab them and call them a criminal? No one wants those jobs,” Sombke said. “I don’t understand why you’d cripple or cause problems for a labor shortage when all you have to do is get them legalized.”

Immigrants hiring immigrants

Elliott’s connection to immigrants isn’t limited to her employees. She was born in the United States but married her husband, Rodney, in Northern Ireland, where they had their children. 

Eliott worked in health care and her husband operated their 140-cow dairy farm in Northern Ireland when a newspaper ad, “Wanted: Dairy farmers in South Dakota,” caught their attention. Moving to America meant fewer regulations, cheaper land, cheaper feed and the ability to grow their business, she said.

The couple used the EB-5 investment-for-visa program to secure backers for their operation, opened the dairy in 2006, paid off the investors within a few years and have been expanding ever since. They started with about 1,500 cows in 2006 and have grown to 6,500.

Elliott’s children got their citizenship shortly after moving to the U.S., and her husband became a citizen about eight years after they moved. That experience helps her empathize with her workers, many of whom are Hispanic. She said everything they’re doing is to support their families back home, even though many aren’t able to see their families for years at a time.

“All they’re guilty of is working and doing a job that isn’t currently being filled by an American,” Elliott said.

Taneeza Islam advocates for immigrants as executive director of South Dakota Voices for Peace. She’s spoken to immigrant workers in other industries who were scared and confused after being terminated due to stricter immigration enforcement. 

“We have two very separate worlds right now: the community that’s impacted and worried about getting detained and deported, and the community that doesn’t know this is happening here,” Islam said.

State recruited dairies

The Elliotts are among many new South Dakotans who’ve helped the dairy industry boom in the last two decades. Then-governor and now-U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican, focused on supporting the industry in the early 2000s, which included efforts to recruit farmers from overseas.

In 2010, South Dakota’s dairy industry had an economic impact of $1.27 billion. By 2023, that had grown to $5.67 billion.

“We’ve achieved our goals we set out for ourselves: build a dairy, milk cows and grow the dairy industry in South Dakota,” Elliott said. “Is it a sustainable goal if there’s nobody to work on these dairies? No. So all the time, money, effort, investment and hard work that has gone into it will be null and void if there isn’t a workforce.”

Sombke, the state Farmers Union president, said the state’s investment in dairy “has been a good thing,” but he isn’t surprised by the recent disruption in the industry.

South Dakota Searchlight requested the number of audits conducted in South Dakota so far in 2025, but a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the department “does not disclose specific data on audits or enforcement actions by state or industry.”

Sombke said dairy audits are “way up” in the state compared to last year. He said nobody should be surprised to find workers at dairies without permission to be in the country. 

“What do you expect? The unemployment rate is less than 2% in the state,” Sombke said. “You’re going to be looking for labor anywhere you can find it.”

Aftermath of an audit

Drumgoon Dairy’s remaining employees have made mistakes because of the long hours they’ve had to cover — like reversing a payloader into a manure pond — or because they’re new to working on the farm.

“Some of them only get one or two days off in a 15-day period,” Elliott said. “But what else do you do? Do you just let cows starve or calves die because there’s no one there to take care of them?”

Some nearby farms sent workers to help at Drumgoon for a couple of days at a time this summer after the audit. Elliott and her husband have spent over $110,000 on recruiters and transportation so far to hire 22 visa workers from Mexico. But the visas come with restrictions on the types of jobs workers can do, so Elliott hired a dozen or so new employees locally, and still wants to hire another 10 to 15 people to replace terminated staff.

Elliott is struggling to find local applicants, which she is required by law to attempt before hiring visa workers. 

“If raising wages even more will bring Americans to work on the farm, we can try it,” Elliott said, “but there is a limit to how high you can raise wages when you don’t get to set the price of milk. Can I afford to pay a milker $25 an hour? At some point, you’d produce milk for more than you’re receiving for it.”

Trump could lead immigration reforms, Thune says

After a panel discussion at the annual Dakotafest agricultural trade show in Mitchell in August, U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, told South Dakota Searchlight that he believes President Donald Trump is interested in legal immigration and work visa reforms.

“If we can find some willing partners in the Democrats, some sort of an immigration policy or a piece of legislation that we could pass is not outside the realm of possibility,” Thune said. “Ultimately, that’s the best long-term solution, and I’ve heard him talk about it.”

Sen. Rounds told Searchlight that as more people are deported and industries are disrupted, “we will get enough support from the administration to begin looking at a legal system again.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, who is running for South Dakota governor next year, said some visa programs should be modified to meet the needs of the dairy industry. Some visas are seasonal programs that require participants to return home after a few months. The programs don’t fit the needs of dairy operations that require workers year-round.

Elliott has broached the issue for years to Thune, Johnson, Rounds and other federal officials.

“All I hear is, ‘I’ll mention that. We’ll talk about that.’ But nothing,” Elliott said. “What we hear is there is absolutely no passion for any kind of change to the status quo.”

Farmers suggest solutions

Lynn Boadwine of Boadwine Farms in Baltic has “run out of gas” trying to advocate for visa and immigration policy changes to support the dairy industry. But he was heartened to hear the congressional delegates’ comments.

“There’s rhetoric, but are you really working on it?” Boadwine said. “I hope they are, because the clock is really ticking on all of these issues and we’re going to start to run out of people.”

Boadwine shared immigration reform ideas with congressional offices but hasn’t heard back on the topic. His hope is to modernize and simplify the H-2A visa program for dairies. His proposal would remove the seasonality requirement and allow workers in the country without legal permission to transition to guest-worker status. Long-term guest workers would have a path toward permanent residency by proving they are law-abiding, hardworking employees.

VanderWal, with the South Dakota Farm Bureau, said he met this spring with Noem in Washington, D.C., in his capacity as vice president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. He urged Noem and the Trump administration to back off on audits in the agricultural industry in hopes that Congress would “fix the system.”

“We wanted to impress upon the administration that if they started removing illegal workers up and down the food chain, from production to processing to transportation to grocery stores to restaurants, we’d see a disaster worse than the pandemic,” VanderWal said.

The administration has since “backed off ag,” VanderWal said, but the consequences linger for producers like the Elliotts and their employees. He said that unless President Trump “gets real forceful and goes after it,” he doesn’t expect Congress to undertake legal immigration reforms.

Economic consequence predicted

At Drumgoon Dairy, Elliott has tried automating aspects of her operation. She and her husband put in 20 robots a few years ago with the expectation they could hire students from nearby Lake Area Technical College’s robotics program to maintain them.

They posted robotics maintenance positions to attract graduates, but the response was deflating.

“To date, no one,” Elliott said.

She plans to remove the robots because the cost of running and servicing them is too expensive. So far, they’ve sold three. If the cost of technology continues to be prohibitive or there aren’t reforms to workforce visa or immigration programs, she said, “I wonder how we will become a sustainable industry.”

Elliott fears there will be consequences and higher prices for milk and other consumer dairy products without action at the federal level. Boadwine agreed.

“If we keep down this road we’ll have no choice but to import more food,” Boadwine said, “and the reason we’d import more is because it’s gotten so much more expensive here because we crippled ourselves.”

Marchers organized by Voces de la Frontera demanded immigration reform from the federal government. (Photo | Joe Brusky)

A family friend who lives in Mexico flew into Chicago last week to visit his college-aged son. We exchanged messages about getting together. Could the two of them come up to Madison, I asked. “The truth is with everything that’s been happening in Chicago, and the arbitrary arrests, we almost haven’t gone out at all these last three days,” my friend wrote back. “This stuff with ICE, it’s unbelievable,” he added. “But there it is. It’s happening.” 

Sadly, he felt safer staying in his son’s apartment and then dashing to the airport Saturday to fly back to Mexico than driving across the border to visit us in Wisconsin.

The same day we exchanged messages, an ICE raid on the northeast side of Madison, not far from my home, swept up seven people. Madison police didn’t even know about the ICE raid until it was over, according to chief John Patterson.

So far, Wisconsin has not been targeted for the massive escalation in immigration raids taking place in neighboring states. But the Thursday morning arrests in Madison and a Sept. 25 sweep of dairy farm workers in Manitowoc mark a sudden shift.

Darryl Morin of the nonprofit Forward Latino addressed the Madison and Manitowoc raids at a Friday press conference in Milwaukee. “While other states such as California and Illinois have borne the brunt of these new immigration enforcement actions,” he said, “I fear we are turning the page and entering a new chapter, a new sad chapter, in immigration enforcement right here in our great state.”

“What we’re seeing in Chicago is now starting to hit closer to home,” agreed Jennifer Maldonado, an immigrants’ rights advocate in Manitowoc, who joined the press conference by video link. She described fielding calls from terrified family members after the crackdown in her area. “Many are people asking, ‘Should I send my children to school? Should I go to work?’” she said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security claims it disrupted an international sex and drug trafficking ring when it grabbed the 24 Manitowoc farm workers at a Walmart parking lot and in a door-to-door operation targeting workers’ homes. 

But this is the same Department of Homeland Security that insisted a Mexican-born Milwaukee resident wrote a letter threatening to assassinate President Donald Trump — even after the person who actually wrote the letter, Demetric Scott, admitted that he was the real author and that he was trying to frame the other man to keep him from testifying against Scott at trial. Long after that confession a statement from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem celebrating the detention of “this illegal alien who threatened to assassinate President Trump” remained on the DHS website, uncorrected, connecting the wrong person to an image of the letter written by Scott. 

Dubious hype about immigrant workers, portraying them as dangerous, violent criminals, is the now-familiar backdrop to a crackdown that does not, in fact, have anything to do with fighting crime. Fewer than half of the people ICE has arrested under Trump are convicted criminals. Of those, only 7% have been convicted of violent crimes and only 5% of drug-related crimes, Tim Henderson of Stateline reports.

In Manitowoc, “This [criminal network] narrative was pushed without any basis to try to paint a negative image of an entire community,” Christine Neumann-Ortiz of Voces de la Frontera said during the Friday press conference. Of the 24 people arrested, ICE identified one person who faced serious criminal charges. But, as Henry Redman reported, that person was not among those rounded up and was already sitting in custody during the Sept. 25 raid. 

Neumann-Ortiz described seeing disturbing videos documenting ICE actions — agents barging into a home “as if this were some kind of cartel, when it’s a working class family” and of a father who was grabbed by ICE while taking out the garbage. “It’s disturbing. It’s very, very disturbing,” she said. 

One bright spot, she said, has been the community response to “the tragedy that we’re witnessing around the U.S. and here in Wisconsin as well.” She praised Wisconsinites’ sense of “urgency to build community — to support each other.” 

Voces and other groups have been training community members across the state, with Know Your Rights seminars and instruction on how to effectively document ICE activity without escalating a dangerous situation. They’ve been lobbying local communities to reject 287(g) ICE cooperation agreements along with the cash incentives the federal government is offering local law enforcement in exchange for rounding up immigrants — a system Neumann Ortiz described as allowing local police to “essentially function like bounty hunters.” And they’ve been trying to help immigrants prepare for the worst, connecting them with immigration attorneys and helping them make contingency plans by naming caretakers for their property and guardians for their children in case they are deported. Forward Latino is sharing helpful information in a “family separation toolkit.”

Advocates, Neumann-Ortiz said, are getting good at “combatting lies,” connecting immigrants with legal support, and moving fast.

Several Manitowoc workers have already been deported, she said, and another was moved to detention outside of Wisconsin, where it’s hard for his family members and his lawyers to be in touch with him. 

Morin said he was on the phone with a Wisconsin resident who had been detained by ICE and he could hear an agent yelling in the background that the man had to sign a self-deportation order. Morin was also yelling, telling the man not to sign, and that they had to let him see a lawyer. “That’s happening on a daily basis,” Morin said. “The violation of constitutional rights is happening right now on a daily basis.” 

Against a gale of misinformation, immigrants’ advocates are fighting to get out the truth. 

“You can fight your deportation. But people need to know that and not be tricked or conned into signing deportation orders,” Neumann Ortiz said.

“It’s not a crime to be undocumented in the US. It’s a civil violation,” Morino added. 

Farmers, alarmed at the prospect of losing the immigrant workers who perform 70% of the labor on Wisconsin dairy farms, have been communicating with each other and with immigrants rights groups, Neumann-Ortiz said, trying to help their employees protect themselves. 

“We need to scale it up even more, so that people are not tricked into giving up their rights,” she said. 

The federal immigration crackdown, and the way it has seeped into local communities, does nothing to improve public safety. We are all safer if immigrants are confident enough to call 911 to report crime and abuse “or if their neighbor’s house is on fire,” as Morin put it. 

Despite the dire news, advocates see progress in community engagement and responsiveness. 

“In the early days we were getting flooded with false reports,” Morin said. “People wanted to spread fear.” Now, through training and preparation, advocacy groups have created a reliable channel for information about ICE raids and are able to screen out unsubstantiated rumors.

And some communities that have been tempted to accept federal dollars and cooperate with ICE have begun to think twice.

In Palmyra, where the local police department signed an agreement with ICE, community pushback has slowed down implementation of the agreement. In Walworth County, Neumann-Ortiz said, public pressure helped persuade the sheriff to reject a 287(g) agreement and Ozaukee County rolled back an agreement to accept federal money in exchange for detaining immigrants arrested by ICE.

The massive increase in funding for ICE — and the incentives it offers local law enforcement agencies to pursue immigrants in their communities — is funded through the same “Big Beautiful Bill Act” that slashes health care, food assistance and education funding. “We’re taking away food from hungry kids, medical care, money from schools, to do what?” Neumann-Ortiz said, referring to the push to terrorize immigrants. “That does not promote public safety.”

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A police officer stands watch as activists protest outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Sept. 5, 2025 in Broadview, Illinois. Immigrants without legal status who have been detained undergo processing at the facility.  (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Attorneys on behalf of a dozen U.S. House Democrats Thursday pushed for a federal judge to force the Trump administration to comply with an appropriations law that allows for unannounced oversight visits at Department of Homeland Security facilities that detain immigrants.  

“We don’t know what detention will look like in the future,” said Christine Coogle, a senior staff attorney for the group Democracy Forward, which represents the lawmakers.

Coogle argued before federal Judge Jia Cobb that because of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, the number of immigrants detained has ballooned. Coogle said that Democrats’ ability to conduct oversight visits without preapproval is not only needed, but already signed into law.  

The suit, filed in the District Court for the District of Columbia, charges that the Trump administration has overreached its authority in creating a policy to require members of Congress give DHS seven days’ notice, plus approval from an agency official, before visiting a facility where immigrants are detained. 

The suit also argues that the DHS policy is unlawful due to the appropriations law.  

DOJ argues against Dems

Appearing on behalf of the Trump administration, Department of Justice attorney Alexander Resar said that the entire case will be moot in three business days, citing the looming government shutdown by next week. He argued that because the appropriations law will expire, lawmakers will not have the authority to conduct oversight provided under that provision. 

Coogle pushed back and said that even the House’s seven-week continuing resolution to avoid a partial government shutdown, passed last week, contained the oversight provision.

“We expect it to be included,” in the fiscal year 2026 appropriations, Coogle said. 

Resar also argued that because that provision is attached to appropriations law, the administration views it as not as enforceable as a separate law passed by Congress.  

He added that Congress has multiple tools to conduct oversight of DHS facilities, such as withdrawing funding from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or impeaching officials. Republicans control both chambers in Congress as well as the White House. 

Cobb questioned why two administrations, that of Biden and the first Trump administration, signed the appropriations bills into law for the past five years if they had an issue with the provision.

Resar said because the provision is attached to an appropriations bill, the Trump administration argues that it doesn’t reach the level of statutory authority. 

Blocked from entry

Democrats detailed in their suit that since June, DHS officials have blocked them from entering facilities that detain immigrants. 

Coogle said members of Congress being able to show up unannounced is an important tool, as in the past lawmakers have detailed how DHS has quickly made changes in preparation for planned visits. 

She said some of those changes include painting facilities and moving detainees.

Resar argued that “if the facilities are being changed for the better,” then planned visits seem beneficial overall. 

The oversight policy that allows members of Congress to show up unannounced at DHS facilities that detain immigrants, including ICE field offices, stems from the first Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the southern border in 2018. 

At that time, Democrats such as Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, who represents the border town of El Paso, were unable to conduct interviews with separated immigrant families and often denied entry into the facilities. 

That led to the inclusion of a provision in the fiscal year 2019 appropriations law that codified a member of Congress’ ability to conduct in-person oversight visits at DHS facilities where minors were detained. 

The provision later was expanded to include all immigrants detained at DHS facilities, not just children, and allowed for unannounced visits by members and the inclusion of congressional staff to enter with their members during oversight visits.

Twelve Democratic House members are part of the suit including Joe Neguse of Colorado, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California, J. Luis Correa of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Dan Goldman of New York, Jimmy Gomez of California, Raul Ruiz of California, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Norma Torres of California. 

The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C., home of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, pictured on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom) 

WASHINGTON — A Friday lawsuit from a civil rights group accused the Trump administration of bypassing deportation restrictions on immigrants slated for removal by sending them to Ghana and having the West African nation deport them to their countries of origin, despite credible findings they could face harm there.

The move violates not only the due process rights of immigrants, but circumvents deportation restrictions placed by immigration judges who determined those immigrants could not be returned to their home country, attorneys from the Asian Americans Advancing Justice, wrote in their suit. 

“Defendants know that they may not, consistent with U.S. immigration law, directly deport non-citizens to countries from which they have been granted fear-based protection,” according to the brief. “As an end-run around this prohibition, Defendants have enlisted the government of Ghana to do their dirty work.”

The Department of Homeland Security and government of Ghana did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.  

Ghana President John Dramani Mahama confirmed to Business Insider Africa this week that the country struck a deal with the U.S. to accept a group of 14 deportees and send some back to their countries of origin. 

The attorneys argued that immigration judges granted their five plaintiffs fear-based deportation protections to their home country under the Immigration Nationality Act and Convention Against Torture. 

They are asking U.S District Judge Tanya Chutkan to require the return of the plaintiffs to the U.S. 

Chutkan sits on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was appointed by former President Barack Obama. 

The plaintiffs are nationals of Nigeria and The Gambia.

Third-country removals

A deportation protection, such as a “withholding of removal,” doesn’t create blanket protections from removal. It requires the U.S. to find what is known as a third country that will accept the deportee. 

Certain other requirements do apply. The government must notify the deportee of the country of removal and give them a chance to object if they fear persecution there. 

The U.S. government must ensure that a third country that accepts a deportee won’t then conduct a removal to their home country, where U.S. immigration officials have found they could face harm.

The suit says that none of the plaintiffs were notified they would be removed to Ghana and instead they were placed on a U.S. military plane and none were given a credible fear interview of being sent to the West African country. 

They were placed in straitjackets and remained on the plane for 16 hours, according to the suit. 

The plaintiffs are referred to by initials in court documents. 

One, referred to as K.S., “is hiding and fears for his life” in The Gambia.

K.S. was granted protections under the Convention Against Torture, a United Nations treaty, because he is bisexual and fears returning to The Gambia where he could face harm, according to court records. The Ghanaian government deported him to The Gambia on Wednesday, according to the suit. 

Four others are detained in Ghana. They are referred to as D.A., T.L., I.O., and D.S in court documents. 

Ghana is planning to remove them to their countries of origin by Friday, according to court records. 

“The comments by U.S. officials on the plane on the way to Ghana, combined with news reports about Ghana’s involvement in a deal with the U.S. about repatriating non-citizens to their countries of origin in Africa, indicate that the U.S. is deporting people to Ghana with the intention that they be deported to their countries of origin,” according to the suit. 

U.S. Marshals and Homeland Security Investigations agents take a man into custody at the intersection of 14th and N streets NW in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 3, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A siren blared down one of Washington, D.C.’s busiest thoroughfares. And then, a loud noise. 

Residents in nearby apartment buildings peered through windows and from balconies to find a dark-colored SUV bumped up against a moped lying on the ground. A dog walker called 911 to report the incident before it became apparent that the unmarked vehicle belonged to federal law enforcement, when men in U.S. Marshals Service flak vests exited.

The rear driver-side tire on the Chevy Tahoe had completely blown and the marshals struggled to find a jack and spare while a uniformed Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer stood guard.

Bystanders pulled out phones to record and heckled. “Shame, shame, shame,” one repeatedly yelled. Another from a nearby apartment balcony screamed “Nazis!” Eyewitnesses began exchanging bits and pieces of what they said they saw, that the driver of the moped fled the scene.

“He didn’t get away though, did he? He’s down there in custody,” a U.S. marshal responded, gesturing to where the driver ran. 

The incident was like so many that have played out on the streets of Washington since Aug. 11, when President Donald Trump declared a federal crime emergency in the District of Columbia: A detainee is taken away by federal agents, often with local law enforcement standing by, and with little information provided to the public.

On the night of Sept. 3, a States Newsroom reporter witnessed and recorded most of the incident at 14th and N streets NW. 

U.S. marshals and Homeland Security Investigations agents detain a man at the intersection of 14th and N streets Northwest in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. (Video by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)  

Earlier this summer, Trump ordered National Guard troops and Marines to the streets of Los Angeles as his administration launched an immigration crackdown, muddling the messages on violent crime and immigration status. 

In recent days Trump has threatened to send National Guard troops to Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, Portland and other Democratic-led cities. As of Monday, the administration announced a wave of federal immigration agents were headed to Chicago.

“This is a big issue,” said Mike Fox, legal fellow for the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice.

Fox, whose think tank advocates for limited federal government, told States Newsroom in an interview about Trump’s federalization of law enforcement in cities that he believes the strategy breaks down trust.

“You have unidentified federal agents coming in, seizing people’s property, but more importantly, seizing people. It undermines the very premise upon which community policing is supposed to work,” Fox said.

Despite multiple inquiries, States Newsroom was not able to get any additional information on the man taken into custody.

Moped drivers 

On the night of Sept. 3, as U.S. marshals continued to struggle with the tire, Homeland Security Investigations agents arrived a short time later with a detainee in the back of a separate unmarked SUV. 

Eight marshals and Homeland Security Investigations agents surrounded the man to switch his restraints to a new set with chains around his waist and between his ankles. HSI is a law enforcement agency within U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, under the Department of Homeland Security.

News outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post and Bellingcat have reported on the detainments of moped drivers in the district, and publicly crowd-sourced alerts from online monitor “Stop ICE Alerts” have included sightings of federal agents stopping mopeds. 

The 30-day federal crackdown has drawn widespread criticism and protests from district residents. District Mayor Muriel Bowser, however, has agreed to keep federal law enforcement on the streets beyond Trump’s emergency, which ends Wednesday.

Moped drivers who run food deliveries are a routine sight on D.C. streets, and many are from Latin America. Until recently, it wasn’t uncommon to see groups of moped food delivery drivers along 14th Street NW before a day’s work or on breaks between orders.

Law enforcement mum

A States Newsroom reporter saw the man being taken into custody but his name and his citizenship or immigration status could not be determined, nor the reason why police chased him. Officers on the scene did not respond to shouted questions.

The U.S. Marshals Service and Homeland Security Investigations have not provided information requested by States Newsroom regarding the incident, including whether the detainee was wanted on criminal charges or what happened to the moped that was left behind at the scene on a nearby sidewalk.

U.S. marshals are officers of the federal courts who usually apprehend fugitives and manage or sell seized assets. In January, Trump directed numerous federal law enforcement agencies, including the Marshals Service, to “investigate and apprehend illegal aliens.” 

States Newsroom has filed Freedom of Information Act requests with both agencies for body camera footage and reports about the incident and apparent impact between the SUV and moped, among other records.

Similarly, the Washington Metropolitan Police Department did not provide information on the incident, despite its presence on the scene.

When asked by States Newsroom if the agency made any records of assisting federal agents that night, MPD spokesperson Tom Lynch responded, “There is no publicly available document for this matter.”

‘It should scare people across the country’

Cato’s Fox said information on the federal crackdown in the district is scarce. 

“And that should scare everyone in D.C. It should scare Congress. It should scare people across the country. This is not a D.C.-specific issue,” Fox said. 

The American Civil Liberties Union’s D.C. Director Monica Hopkins told States Newsroom in a statement that “there are huge gaps and limitations in the accountability that is available to people” when it comes to federal law enforcement.

“Despite the Trump administration’s attempts at fear and intimidation, everyone in D.C. has rights, regardless of who they are and their immigration status,” Hopkins said.

The ACLU-DC is urging Congress to pass legislation barring federal immigration authorities from wearing face coverings and obscuring their agencies or identification when engaged in enforcement actions.

The Homeland Security Investigations agents and U.S. marshals at the incident witnessed by States Newsroom did not have their faces covered and were wearing vests identifying their respective agencies.

However, agents carrying out detainments in balaclava-style face coverings or bandanas and plain clothes, donning vests that only say “police,” have been witnessed and recorded by members of the public and journalists.

Later that night

As the scene wrapped up in Northwest D.C. on Sept. 3, immigrant advocates on bicycles arrived.

The volunteers said they were with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid group, a network in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area collecting information on immigration arrests and raids. The group runs a hotline for arrest reports and for family members seeking relatives who may have been detained.

States Newsroom contacted the mutual aid organization but could not obtain any details about the Sept. 3 incident.

Roughly an hour after police cleared that night, a States Newsroom reporter witnessed a small group of people surrounding the moped. A few tried to start the engine and removed at least one item from the under-seat storage compartment.

The moped was no longer there the following morning.

U.S. Marshals and the Department of Homeland Security have not responded to questions about the whereabouts of the moped.