"If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement is trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability."
- Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin
"What hospital were you born?"
- ICE Agent
In 1987, Cheech Marin portrayed a native born American caught up in an immigration sweep and deported to Mexico in the movie "Born In East LA". On the big screen, this was considered a comedy, but in reality, it can only be described as a tragedy.
Even before Trump unleashed his masked ICE agents on immigrant communities, the bureaucracy in charge of expelling those without proper documentation had a concerning record of including those with the right to be here. In the eight years before Trump's first presidential campaign announcement, immigration officials requested that at least 693 citizens be detained in local jails, mistakenly believing that they were eligible for deportation. Additionally, 818 citizens were improperly held in immigration detention centers.
With Trump catering to xenophobes, it is not surprising that these problems persisted during his first presidency. Between 2015 and 2020, immigration officials mistakenly detained or arrested more than 600 citizens, with a General Accounting Office (GAO) finding that "ICE often fails to verify citizenship before taking action." Even worse, "at least 70 American citizens were wrongfully deported".
These errors are inevitable with ICE ignoring due process and operating under the premise that their targets are guilty until proven innocent. Since immigration cases are not considered criminal, the accused are not even entitled to representation. The Trump administration has even sent young children to represent themselves in immigration courts.
With the increasing number of ICE street sweeps needed for them to meet their arrest quotas, how are they determining who they will target? They are permitted to take anyone into custody whom they suspect of having entered the country illegally, but on what basis are they building this suspicion? Is there any way but profiling? Is it ok for armed, masked agents to ask patrons and vendors at a swap meet where they were born? Since brown-skinned citizens look no different than those with brown skin who have entered the country illegally, it is no surprise that this has already resulted in false arrests:
- Despite telling an agent "at least three times" that "I'm an American citizen", Brian Gavidia was pushed by an immigration agent into a metal gate and had his hands placed behind his back when he was unable to tell the agent the name of the hospital where he was born. After Gavidia produced his Real ID, he was finally freed by the agent. He may not be so lucky next time, as the agent kept that document. In violation of the Fourth Amendment, he also took possession of Gavidia's phone during the search.
- Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was born in the United States but lived in Mexico from the time he was one year old until four years ago. The Florida State Trooper who arrested him for being an "unauthorized alien" states that Lopez-Gomez told him that he was in the country illegally, a story complicated by the fact that Lopez-Gomez's first language is Tzotzil, a Mayan language. The Department of Homeland Security says that Lopez-Gomez was released "immediately after learning the individual was a United States citizen", but this ignores the fact that he provided both his Real ID and Social Security card to the arresting officer.
- The immigration bureaucracy also blames Jose Hermosillo, a 19-year-old American citizen with intellectual disabilities, for his ten-day detention. The Department of Homeland Security claims that "Hermosillo approached Border Patrol in Tucson, Arizona, stating he had ILLEGALLY entered the U.S. and identified himself as a Mexican citizen." Hermosillo, who had become lost after being released from the hospital following a seizure, claims that he told the agent he was from New Mexico, but was accused of lying.
- Andrea Velez's mother and sister had just dropped her off at work when they saw armed men throw her into an unmarked car. Witnesses say "that the agents never asked Velez for identification, and that she did nothing wrong". Having now learned that she is an American citizen, the agents are claiming that she had assaulted them. LAPD officers can be seen in the video sitting idly by, doing nothing to ensure that an Angeleno's rights were not violated.
The worst part is that these violations of constitutional rights have not even resulted in fulfilling Trump's campaign promise to remove the most dangerous criminals from our streets. Only a third of the 185,042 people taken into custody by ICE between October 1, 2024, and May 31, 2025, had been previously convicted of any crimes, and most of those were immigration and traffic offenses. Of the 13,099 people convicted of homicide and 15,811 people convicted of sexual assault who were on ICE's non-detained docket last fall, only 752 people convicted of homicide and 1,693 people convicted of sexual assault have been apprehended. At best, this is proof of incompetence in a failing Presidency.
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Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, and serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD's District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him "a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles." For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.
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