A woman is detained by federal agents after exiting a hearing in immigration court at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building on Sept. 3, 2025, in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued in a major case earlier this month that U.S. citizens face few problems in having their immigration status verified if federal agents apprehend them.

“If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go,” Kavanaugh wrote in concurrence with an opinion in a case on the emergency docket. 

In reality, the Trump administration’s aggressive drive to carry out mass deportations of people without legal status already has led to U.S. citizens being swept up in raids and detained, according to news reports from around the country as well as immigration experts. Such detainments now will increase, experts predict.

Once in detention, it can take time to verify citizenship. A passport is considered the gold standard for proof that an individual is a citizen, but fewer than half of Americans hold passports, according to the State Department’s most recent data from 2024. Even fewer are likely to carry the bulky document around.

Kavanaugh’s remarks came in a 6-3 Supreme Court decision that gave the go-ahead, for now, for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to use racial profiling in enforcement raids in Los Angeles, while a case on the issue proceeds through the courts. A district court’s order had barred federal immigration officers from using racial profiling to detain immigrants without legal status.

Two of the five plaintiffs at the center of the case are Latino men who repeatedly informed federal immigration officials they were U.S. citizens, but were still arrested and detained. 

All three liberal justices on the high court dissented with the ruling that authorized racial profiling. Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a scathing opinion said Kavanaugh’s reasoning “blinks reality.” 

John Sandweg, an attorney who served as the acting director at ICE during the Obama administration, said in an interview with States Newsroom that the outcome is clear.

“There’s a high likelihood, based on this opinion, that somebody who is a United States citizen could be detained for days, if not weeks, while ICE goes out and tries to confirm … that they are in fact a U.S. citizen,” said Sandweg.

“It’s not something you can figure out in the parking lot of a Home Depot,” he said, referring to locations targeted by ICE because day laborers, typically lacking legal status, wait there to find work.

Proving you are a citizen

There is no national database of U.S. citizens and no requirement to carry around a national ID, meaning it can take ICE significant time to verify citizenship status, Sandweg said.

There is an exception for naturalized citizens, something ICE officers can quickly check in a database. But more complex situations such as Americans born abroad to U.S. citizen parents, known as derivative citizenship, can be more problematic.

Obtaining a passport is an answer but it is expensive, costing up to $160 to renew or get one for the first time, and takes weeks for processing.  

Even carrying a form of identification like a driver’s license doesn’t guarantee proof of citizenship, as 19 states and the District of Columbia approve driver’s licenses regardless of citizenship status. 

It’s unclear how often ICE mistakenly arrests U.S. citizens, but the most recent data comes from a 2021 report from the Government Accountability Office, an independent federal watchdog agency. 

The report found that ICE arrested 674 “potential” U.S. citizens, detained 121 and deported 70 from fiscal year 2015 to six months into 2020 — long before the current crackdown.

ICE did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for comment about the process for immigration officials to verify citizenship.

‘Apparent ethnicity’

The order from the high court, for now, will allow federal immigration officials to use “apparent ethnicity” as one factor in determining reasonable suspicion that a person is violating U.S. immigration law, as long as it is not the only factor. 

Before the district court issued a restraining order on the practice, immigration agents used a broad variety of factors to determine someone’s apparent ethnicity, including speaking Spanish or accented English, certain types of work like landscaping and day labor and locations such as bus stops or car washes.

The case stemmed from the administration’s mass raids this summer on Los Angeles-area Home Depot stores and other sites where day laborers gather, sparking massive protests in the city. President Donald Trump cited the protests in deploying National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to the city, over California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections. 

Those two plaintiffs in the case are not the only U.S. citizens swept up in ICE raids during the second Trump administration.

In Florida, police detained a 20-year-old for days following a traffic stop, even though he told officers he was a U.S. citizen and provided his Social Security card. In New Jersey, ICE detained a U.S. citizen who was a military veteran for hours before releasing him. 

And in Southern California, a 25-year-old U.S. Army veteran was detained for three days by federal immigration officials, The Atlantic reported. 

Members of Congress have also expressed concern about federal immigration officials arresting and detaining U.S. citizens, and 50 Democratic lawmakers have pressed the Department of Homeland Security internal watchdogs to investigate if the agency is violating Americans’ civil rights.

“We are increasingly concerned by reporting that U.S. citizens are being detained as a result of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions,” they wrote in a letter last month to the DHS  Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Office of Inspector General and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman.

Supreme Court ‘signaling to ICE’

The ruling, while based on immigration raids in Los Angeles, could have effects nationwide, said Sophia Genovese, a clinical teaching fellow and supervising attorney at Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Legal Studies. 

The Trump administration launched an immigration crackdown in Chicago and Boston this month, two cities with large immigrant populations. They were also the frequent target for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to send buses of newly arrived migrants from the southern border. 

Genovese said while Kavanaugh’s concurrence is not a binding majority opinion, “it’s still signaling to ICE that they can engage in this racial profiling,” for a warrantless arrest. 

ICE agents are allowed to make warrantless arrests if an officer has probable cause or reason to believe a person is in the United States without legal authorization and can escape before a warrant is obtained.   

“The situation that we’re seeing play out in L.A. and across the country is a warrantless arrest, and the reality on the ground is they’re being quite violent and physical with people,” she said. “They’re quite literally snatching people off the street.”

Genovese, who specializes in immigration and asylum law, said that even when a U.S. citizen produces their documents, it can take weeks to be released for detention or to have a case closed in immigration court. 

“People are scared, and people have been saying they feel like they need to carry their ‘papers,’ whether that’s a passport or a green card or something else, to prove that they have a right to be here,” Genovese said. “That isn’t required under the law, but that’s nevertheless the impact it’s having on communities.”

She added that the burden to prove citizenship should be on the federal government, not the individual. 

It’s a consequence that Sotomayor warned in her dissent would fall on the Latino community, arguing that it creates a second-class citizenship status and violates the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment that bars unreasonable search and seizure.

“The Government, and now the concurrence, has all but declared that all Latinos, U. S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction,” she wrote. 

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer's badge is seen as federal agents patrol the halls of immigration court in New York City on June 10, 2025. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

ICE arrests in Wisconsin from January to the end of July this year increased 22% compared to the same time period last year and most of that increase has come from federal authorities arresting people who have been charged with but not yet convicted of a crime, according to federal data compiled by the Deportation Data Project. 

Advocacy groups say the increase in arrests has sown fear and confusion among the state’s immigrant communities, and the intensity of ICE’s tactics have drawn attention and controversy across the country. But Wisconsin has thus far avoided the full brunt of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown compared to the state’s four midwestern neighbors. 

Iowa, which of the five states had the lowest number of ICE arrests last year under President Joe Biden, has seen arrests increase 293% this year under Trump. 

Illinois, where Chicago has become a focus of federal law enforcement and ICE activity, has seen ICE arrests increase 46% this year. 

Minnesota, despite its similarities to Wisconsin in  total population and number of Hispanic residents, has seen ICE arrests increase 95% this year. 

Last year, Michigan and Wisconsin had nearly equal amounts of ICE arrests. But under Trump, Michigan ICE arrests increased 152%. 

Luis Velasquez, statewide organizing director for Voces de la Frontera, told the Wisconsin Examiner that the administration’s tactics have caused fear to spread through immigrant communities across the state — even if the total number of arrests hasn’t increased as much as in other places. And while the numbers haven’t increased substantially, local law enforcement across the state has shown an increased willingness to devote resources to the federal immigration crackdown. The number of county sheriff’s offices participating in a federal collaboration program with ICE has jumped from nine to 14 this year. 

“In many ways it is like a psychological warfare that this administration has launched,” Velasquez said. 

Tim Muth, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Wisconsin, said the data can’t be used to predict future ICE activity in the state, but in the first eight months of the Trump administration, ICE is working with local law enforcement in ways that have terrified immigrants. 

“We don’t want to speculate on individual statistics or on what the future plans of the Trump regime may be, but we can say that increased collaboration between local law enforcement and ICE is instilling a sense of fear and instability in Wisconsin’s immigrant communities,” Muth said in an email. “We know they are ramping up their deportation agenda, and they are relying on local authorities to make it happen.”

Trump was elected after running on a platform of “mass deportations” and taking advantage of a backlash against a spike in the number of people making claims for asylum at the U.S./Mexico border under President Joe Biden. But Velasquez said it feels like ICE’s increased role is doing nothing to address the real challenges of immigration policy.

“There isn’t this thoughtful, strategic conversation, to really solve these issues,” he said. “It has been very radical, the way that it’s been enforced. So on the ground people have lost that kind of sense of let’s talk about solutions. It feels very reactive. People are not shopping, with school started again, there’s fear about ICE going into schools. It’s charged with anxiety and fear. It’s unnecessary suffering that is being caused statewide.” 

He points to instances in which people living in the country without legal authorization  have been arrested after showing up for court dates or been accused of bizarre crimes by the federal government. 

“What people are sensing in one way is this is a system that doesn’t make sense. It’s not working for us,” he said. “And then, on the other hand there’s people who are saying, ‘Well, I can be accused of any crime, and then I could just be detained.’”

The Trump administration and Department of Homeland Security officials have regularly claimed ICE is targeting “the worst of the worst,” rooting out violent criminals and gang members. But NBC5, a Chicago TV station, reported this week it could find no criminal record for people the department arrested on immigration charges, claiming they were violent offenders. 

Across the Midwest the increase in ICE arrests has been driven by targeting people who have been charged but not  convicted of crimes — a tactic that experts say violates due process and makes communities less safe. 

In Wisconsin, under Biden, 56% of those arrested by ICE were convicted of a crime and 9% had pending criminal charges. This year under Trump, 60% of those arrested have been convicted of a crime and 24% have pending criminal charges.

That data includes cases such as Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, the Mexican immigrant who had appeared for a court date in Milwaukee County in a misdemeanor battery case when federal agents from ICE, the FBI and DEA arrived at the courthouse to arrest him. That arrest led to federal authorities charging Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan with a felony for allegedly obstructing the arrest. 

Nationally, 70.8% of people in ICE custody have no criminal convictions, according to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. 

“ICE will continue to prioritize the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes, ensuring our children are protected and justice is served,” the agency, which did not respond to a request for comment, said in a news release on Wednesday about its arrests of six individuals without legal documentation convicted of sex crimes in six different states. 

While the administration emphasizes justice when it says it is targeting dangerous criminals, Muth said arrests of people not yet convicted damages the criminal justice system. 

“Picking up persons on ICE detainers while charges are still pending subverts the criminal justice system and deprives persons of their right to trial,” he said. “We also remain deeply concerned about the ongoing erosion of due process, as immigrants across the country have been abruptly rounded up by masked agents, detained and arrested without explanation, all while their families are kept in the dark about what’s happening to them. These horrifying scenes point to the federal government’s willingness to ignore the rights of immigrants and betray fundamental principles of our immigration system.”

Luca Fagundes, a Green Bay-area immigration attorney, says ICE operating in courthouses is the “easy road” for rounding up immigrants because people have little choice to avoid a court date — even if the crime is as simple as driving without a license, which immigrants without legal authorization to live in the country are unable to obtain in Wisconsin. 

“People are showing up to traffic court, and when their case is called their identity is confirmed, which makes it very easy for an ICE officer to detain them after leaving the courtroom,” Fagundes said in an email. “That person, who showed up for court (again, for perhaps something as simple as driving without a license) is now being arrested and detained by ICE. They will then be transferred to an ICE facility where they wait weeks or months for a bond hearing with an immigration judge. While in ICE custody waiting to see the immigration judge, they typically then miss the next court appearance they may have on their traffic court matter, and that results in a warrant for their arrest on that simple traffic matter.”

“It’s a domino effect of catastrophe for that individual,” she added, “and, if applicable, their family.” 

Velasquez said the modest increase in arrests here in Wisconsin has triggered fear. But he said successful organizing efforts to protect migrant farm workers and prevent more law enforcement from signing agreements with ICE may have helped stave off raids on farms and, for now, helped keep Wisconsin’s immigrant workforce safer than workers in other states. 

“There’s people who are being detained, so people are feeling it, regardless of the data,” he said. “But I do agree [about] the power of local communities being able to reject and say that we know  what’s best for our local communities. We’re not going to be seduced by money, by this administration. … We know our local communities better, and we don’t want our workers to suffer.”

“I think that there are powerful alliances that are being built across Wisconsin,” he continued. “That may be the reason why we haven’t gotten hit. But who knows — that could dramatically change tomorrow, right? So we do recognize the small victories, and this is good news, right? But at the same time, I think we need more dialogue. We need more common sense policies. We need more conversations of what we agree on.”

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.