When immigration agents pulled U.S. citizen Leonardo Garcia Venegas from his car this month and shackled him, he wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t scared.

He was tired.

As ProPublica detailed last fall, he had already been detained twice before.

A year ago, Garcia Venegas was filming his brother’s arrest during a raid on their coastal Alabama construction site when he was tackled by agents, who ignored his pleas that he was a citizen. A few weeks later, an officer entered the home Garcia Venegas was building and refused to trust the now-26-year-old’s Alabama REAL ID, which only citizens and legal residents can get.

Videos of the incidents went viral. He appeared before Congress. He also has a suit pending against the Trump administration.

But all the attention hasn’t changed much. On May 2, agents followed him back to his home. They again didn’t believe his claims of citizenship or the REAL ID he once again tried to show them.

Now, after that latest detention, Garcia Venegas sounds demoralized.

“Honestly, it feels terrible,” Garcia Venegas told ProPublica. The mental burden of wondering when it will happen again weighs on him, bringing stress and depression. “I drive to work every morning and I know, at any moment, they could pull me over again.”

While immigration sweeps have receded from the headlines, Garcia Venegas’ most recent incident highlights how the mistaken detention of Americans has continued despite congressional inquiries and denials by senior immigration........

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