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Some Americans Have Already Been Caught in Trump’s Immigration Dragnet. More Will Be.

2 142
19.03.2025

by Nicole Foy

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About a week after President Donald Trump took office, Jonathan Guerrero was sitting at the Philadelphia car wash where he works when immigration agents burst in.

The agents didn’t say why they were there and didn’t show their badges, Guerrero recalled. So the 21-year-old didn’t get a chance to explain that although his parents were from Mexico, he had been born right there in Philadelphia.

“They looked at me and made me put my hands up without letting me explain that I’m from here,” Guerrero said.

An agent pointed his gun at Guerrero and handcuffed him. Then they brought in other car wash workers, including Guerrero’s father, who is undocumented. When agents began checking IDs, they finally noticed that Guerrero was a citizen and quickly let him go.

“I said, ‘Look, man, I don’t know who these guys are and what they’re doing,” said Guerrero. “With anything law-related, I just stay quiet.”

Less than two months into the new Trump administration, there has been a small but steady beat of reported cases like Guerrero’s.

In Utah, agents pulled over and detained a 20-year-old American after he honked at them. In New Mexico, a member of the Mescalero Apache nation more than two hours from the border was questioned by agents who demanded to see their passport. Earlier this month, a Trump voter in Virginia was pulled over and handcuffed by gun-wielding immigration agents.

In Texas, a 10-year-old citizen recovering from brain cancer was detained at a Border Patrol checkpoint and eventually deported to Mexico with her undocumented parents and other........

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