Civil Liberties

A U.S. Citizen Is Suing ICE for Arresting Him Twice. He Just Got Arrested a Third Time.

Leo Garcia Venegas and the Institute for Justice are suing to block immigration raids on private construction sites that target Latinos.

C.J. Ciaramella | 5.12.2026 10:15 AM

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(Institute for Justice)

An Alabama construction worker who is suing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after he was arrested twice last year, despite being a U.S. citizen, was shackled and detained by federal immigration officers for a third time earlier this month, according to court documents.

In a declaration filed in federal court, Leo Garcia Venegas said he was parking in front of his house in Silverhill, Alabama, on the morning of May 2 when an unmarked SUV blocked him in. Venegas claimed that before he could hand his Alabama-issued REAL ID to the two federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers who approached him, they pulled him out of the truck he was driving and handcuffed him.

What makes the incident extraordinary is that Venegas is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit challenging DHS' immigration enforcement policies, and it was the third time he's been handcuffed and detained by ICE agents. Venegas was detained twice in 2025 during raids on private construction sites where he was working, even though he had a REAL ID identifying him as a U.S. citizen.

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public-interest law firm, filed a class-action lawsuit last October on behalf of Venegas and other construction workers seeking to stop "dragnet raids" that target Latinos without any probable cause besides their ethnicity. Venegas and the Institute for Justice argue that DHS policies allow immigration agents to illegally raid private construction sites, detain workers without reasonable suspicion, and continue detaining them even after they offer evidence of citizenship or legal status.

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