ProPublica documents over 500 US citizens detained by immigration Gestapo in Trump’s mass deportation operation

6 October 2026facebook iconFederal immigration police have detained at least 506 US citizens since Donald Trump returned to the White House, according to an investigation published Tuesday by ProPublica. Those detained include children, Native Americans and people simply recording immigration raids.

The findings underscore that the administration’s mass deportation operation is an attack on the entire working class, regardless of immigration status. The methods used to terrorize immigrant workers are being deployed against citizens, including those who oppose or simply document the government’s kidnapping operations.

ProPublica found that at least 70 American children and teens have been detained, including several at gunpoint or handcuffed. Over 300 were taken for allegedly impeding ICE kidnapping operations, of which fewer than half, 137, were charged in federal court. Nearly half of these 137 cases have already been dropped or dismissed.

Roughly a dozen US citizens identified by ProPublica, mostly children, have been deported.

The case of Jeury Concepcion, a 19-year-old New York City citizen assaulted and kidnapped by ICE on May 6, 2026, is an instructive example that exposes the criminality of the immigration Gestapo.

Concepcion was simply walking in front of a barbershop in the Bronx when federal agents assaulted and kidnapped him. During the violent arrest Concepcion suffered head injuries requiring stitches.

A still image from a nearby security camera shows that the ICE thug has his gun drawn and is pointing it at Concepcion, even though he has committed no crime and is a legal US citizen.

After apparently realizing he was not the intended target, agents left the teenager bloodied and scared far away from where they kidnapped him.

US District Judge Gary Brown reprimanded ICE and the agents in a ruling on a petition filed by Angel Jesus Almonte, who was also targeted alongside Concepcion. Judge Brown noted that ICE agents claimed Almonte matched a description of their target, even though their alleged target “was five inches shorter and 80 pounds lighter.” Brown added that at a hearing “the officers proffered inconsistent, false and misleading testimony” to justify their actions.

The claims of misidentification here prove baseless, the arrests were procedurally deficient and legally invalid, and ICE agents falsified official records trying to conceal their illegal actions, which included significant injury to a U.S. citizen. The arrest and detention of petitioner were illegal.

In the case of Almonte, Brown found that ICE agents made up an administrative warrant to justify kidnapping him after they discovered he was the wrong person. Brown found that in various hearings and declarations to the court ICE agents offered “evasive and apparently perjurious testimony,” including concerning “supposed observations of the petitioner engaging in drug transactions, which bear all the hallmarks of coordinated fabrication.”

Concepcion’s kidnapping also exposes the administration of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani campaigned as an opponent of ICE and Trump’s reactionary agenda, attacking former Mayor Eric Adams and rival Andrew Cuomo as collaborators with the president. In office, however, he has repeatedly met with Trump, first at the White House and most recently at Gracie Mansion, even as federal immigration police continue to terrorize New Yorkers.

This collaboration extends beyond meetings and mutual praise. Mamdani’s New York City Police Department has repeatedly deployed to 26 Federal Plaza to protect ICE agents carrying out kidnapping operations. His administration has also fired Haitian workers following Trump’s revocation of Temporary Protected Status. While Mamdani cultivates relations with the fascist in the White House, his administration helps enforce the assault on immigrant workers, which he had claimed to oppose.

Of the 506 US citizens ProPublica identified as detained by immigration police, 77 were from the state of Minnesota, with a majority of those occurring during the occupation of the Twin Cities dubbed “Operation Metro Surge” by the administration. At least 56 US citizens were detained by ICE during the month of January, which saw massive protests following the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.

None of the immigration agents involved in the killings of Good, Pretti, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas or Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine have been charged for their violent and deadly actions. Under capitalism, the “special body of armed men,” the police, which include local and federal immigration agents, are given immense leeway in abusing, assaulting and killing workers in order to protect capitalist interests.

While federal immigration police assault and kill workers with impunity, their victims and surviving relatives are forced to pursue civil litigation to expose the government’s actions and demand accountability. Two lawsuits filed by Renee Good’s family on October 1 and another filed by Marimar Martinez on October 5 document the violence and official cover-ups accompanying the mass deportation operation.

The family of Renee Good filed two civil lawsuits. The first names the United States as the sole defendant under the Federal Tort Claims Act, while the second names Good’s killer, Jonathan Ross, and 10 “John Doe” federal agents, along with several current and former Trump administration officials, including former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, “border czar” Tom Homan and former Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino.

At a press conference last Thursday announcing the lawsuit, Becca Good, Renee’s partner, spoke publicly for the first time since the killing. She said living without Renee was like “trying to live without the sun.” She continued, “And you don’t know how much light something gives you until it’s gone, and then you feel that absence every single second.”

Can you explain the historical role police and federal agencies have played in the US as an armed force protecting capitalist property relations rather than individual rights?How does Mamdani's collaboration with ICE in New York fit the broader pattern of Democratic Party officials working with Trump's deportation machinery in other cities?Ask more questions at SocialismAI.comShe added that “What happened to us should never happen to any family.” She called for “true accountability,” and added that while she did not “hate” the people who took Renee from her and her children, “I want them to understand... every single day, they get to look at their children, and their wives, and their sisters, and know what they took from our family. They took a mother away from her children. They know that, and they will carry it forever.”

Another woman shot multiple times by ICE thugs, Marimar Martinez, a US citizen and resident of Chicago, filed her own lawsuit on October 5 against the US government. Martinez was shot five times last year by Border Patrol officer Charles Exum during “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago. Following the shooting, federal agents and Trump administration officials lied and claimed Martinez was a “domestic terrorist” who had “weaponized” her vehicle and was trying to run over Customs and Border Protection agents. Body camera footage from inside the SUV occupied by CBP agents conclusively proved it was the CBP that initiated the contact and tried to murder Martinez.

In her lawsuit against the US government, Martinez’s lawyers quoted from a 196-page report on the federal occupation of the city issued by the Illinois Accountability Commission, headed by retired federal Judge Ruben Castillo. In regard to the occupation, Castillo wrote, “[i]n my 25 years as a federal judge, I’ve never seen the type of brutality shown by the agents involved in Midway Blitz.”

On Martinez specifically, the commission found that “Federal agents produced materially inaccurate official reports,” and that “[e]vidence was deliberately tampered with and destroyed.” It stated that CBP officer Exum “shot an unarmed civilian without apparent justification.”

The lawsuit provides all the information needed to charge Exum with vehicular assault and attempted murder. In body camera footage, Exum and the other agents are heard discussing plans to make contact with Martinez’s vehicle and claim they were “boxed in,” a lie that was repeated by the government and Trump administration officials following the October 4, 2025 shooting. After deliberately colliding with Martinez’s vehicle and before exiting the SUV, Exum is heard yelling, Glock 47 in hand, “All right, it’s on now fuckers!” Without giving any verbal commands to Martinez, Exum fired five shots at her approximately two seconds later.

Martinez, a teacher's aide at a Montessori school with no criminal record, was hit seven times with bullet injuries to her legs, right thigh, right forearm and the side of her chest. Pictures in the lawsuit show the bullet holes entering the windshield and going through the driver and passenger's chairs. The lawsuit notes that objective evidence from a reconstruction of the crime scene “establishes that far from Marimar presenting a risk of harm to Agent Exum, Agent Exum was walking towards Marimar’s vehicle while he was firing at her.”

The lawsuit also details Exum’s efforts to destroy evidence in violation of a court order. On October 6, 2025, Magistrate Judge Heather McShain expressly warned the government to preserve evidence, including the agents’ SUV, and that failure to comply could result in sanctions or contempt of court. Two days later, according to the complaint, Exum personally drove the SUV from the FBI evidence garage in Chicago to his Border Patrol station in Calais, Maine. There, he ordered repairs, including buffing out paint transferred during the collision with Martinez’s vehicle.

While Martinez was bleeding from gunshot wounds, Exum’s superiors were already moving to reward him. Within hours of the shooting, Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino emailed Exum offering to extend his service beyond retirement age. “In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!” Bovino wrote.