Report says it found more than 500 cases of U.S. citizens detained by immigration agents, but DHS says its operations are ‘highly targeted’

A ProPublica investigation published Tuesday says immigration officers held more than 500 U.S. citizens between January 2025 and September 2026. The outlet counted people it could identify who were reportedly kept against their will for any length of time. That included Americans who were handcuffed, held at gunpoint, or otherwise not allowed to leave.

President Donald Trump made immigration a central part of his campaign. His administration has strongly rejected critics who say agents used abusive practices, held citizens, or relied on racial profiling. ProPublica wrote that “that is precisely what is happening, and at a far larger scale than previously reported.”

The Department of Homeland Security answered the outlet in a statement. It said, “DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted,” and said the agency does its due diligence. DHS also said, “ICE has significant protections in place to ensure U.S. citizens are not arrested, detained, or mistakenly removed.” It warned that people who obstruct agents “will of course face consequences which include arrest.”

More than 300 citizens are held on assault and obstruction charges

Nicole Foy, Ruth Talbot, Cengiz Yar, Liliana Michelena, Bianca Fortis, Mariam Elba, and Kahlie Wray wrote the report. They said they used the legal idea that a person is detained when they are not free to leave. They described the tally as “all incidents we could find of citizens reportedly being held against their will by immigration officers for any amount of time.”

The count was narrower than every encounter agents had with citizens. Reporters kept only warrantless stops that happened away from airports and away from the border, where immigration officers have long had broader authority. They set aside arrests backed by a judicial warrant. They also left out cases in which an agent shot, tackled, or pepper-sprayed someone without holding them, and arrests of immigration protesters by local police enforcing local laws.

Inside that frame, the report lists more than 100 Americans held after agents questioned whether they were citizens. Nearly all of those people were people of color, ProPublica said. At least 70 American children and teens were detained, and some were handcuffed. At least 63 Americans were held while they were recording. Thirty-six were kept for a day or longer with no way to reach a lawyer or family.

More than 300 of the Americans in the tally were held on claims that they assaulted or obstructed agents. ProPublica said fewer than half of that group were charged in federal court, and that many of the cases that were filed were later dropped or dismissed.

The report also says roughly a dozen citizens were deported, most of them children. Reporters called the full total an undercount because they included only people they could name.

“Collectively, these cases show that as the administration has relentlessly pursued immigrants, federal agents have run roughshod over the constitutional rights of citizens too,” the report said. “We’re showing you every case – the reality that the administration denies – along with the receipts.” ProPublica said the package also includes photos and video from other stops it ties to First Amendment and Fourth Amendment claims.

Named examples in the report include a 20-year-old man kept in a Florida jail for more than 24 hours even though he had proof he was a citizen. A dual U.S.-Mexico citizen was held in California for four days with no access to a lawyer or family, the outlet said. In Illinois, ProPublica said more than 120 citizens were detained during Operation Midway Blitz, despite a DHS claim of “no administrative arrests of U.S. citizens.”

One of the longer accounts is about Willy Wender Aceituno, a naturalized citizen in North Carolina. Accounts of citizens being pinned to the ground by agents have surfaced elsewhere, such as in a case where ICE agents allegedly pinned a man to the ground in Evanston, Illinois, mistaking him for someone else.

He told ProPublica he “voted for Trump twice” and said he never expected the crackdown he backed to reach him. He said Border Patrol agents broke his truck window last November, pulled him out, and threw him onto a parking-lot pavement, where one agent knelt on his back. DHS says he “refused to comply” with agents’ commands.

“ICE isn’t looking for criminals,” Aceituno said. “They’re looking for Latinos. Having papers in this country does not protect you.” He said his U.S.-born daughter now carries her passport at college. “She has a Latino face,” he said, adding, “My daughter’s white friends aren’t carrying their passports.”

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the federal government for Aceituno over what it calls an “unlawful arrest.”

The group said he “was thrown onto the pavement, which was covered in broken glass, and he suffered bleeding cuts all over his body.” It said he “kept repeating that he was a citizen while the agents continued to tell him to ‘shut up,'” until an agent checked his wallet and “confirmed that he was a citizen with no criminal record.” He was then let go “on the side of the road, still bleeding and 2 miles away from his truck,” the ACLU said.