He's a U.S. Citizen and Combat Veteran. ICE Tear-Gassed, Jailed, and Falsely Accused Him.
cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/46331510
> > The agents started yelling, Retes says. "Get the fuck out of here!" "Leave!" "Get back in your car!" "Pull over to the side!" "You're not going to work." "Work is closed." Retes asked for a badge number that he could give to his boss when he didn't show up on time. But that made the agents madder.
> >
> > Roughly three out of four ICE detainees have no criminal record, according to a November 2025 Cato Institute report, and are otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants—but some of the people arrested are, like Retes, U.S. citizens.
> >
> > "Literally the first words out of my mouth was that I was a U.S. citizen, that I'm just trying to get work…and they just didn't care," Retes says. "They were immediately hostile from the get-go."
> >
> > Rather than escalate any further, Retes got back into his car to follow the agents' directions and leave. But the agents unexpectedly moved forward, surrounded the car, and started banging on its windows and pulling on its door handles, telling him to get out. Another agent yelled at him to reverse, and another told him to pull over to the side of the road. "They're all yelling contradictory things when all I was already trying to do was leave like they were asking me to do," says Retes. "Like, what am I supposed to do?"
> >
> > Retes reversed into the right lane to get out of the way. As he pulled back, agents threw tear gas into the protesters behind him, engulfing his car. He was trapped.
> >
> > ...
> >
> > But then agents approached again, banging on the car windows and pulling on door handles. Retes, coughing and trying to catch his breath, pleaded with the officers that he was trying to leave. Then glass went flying everywhere. An agent immediately reached through Retes' shattered window to pepper-spray him in the face. A split second later, Retes was dragged out of his car.
> >
> > ...
> >
> > Eventually, agents put Retes into an unmarked car and drove him to a Navy base. There, authorities took his fingerprints, his picture, and a mouth swab for DNA. "They ended up reading me my rights and just told me that they were just investigating everything that happened…and why I was there," says Retes. "They never said I was being charged with anything. They never said that I was getting arrested."
> >
> > ...
> >
> > "When they took me to the prison…it was just like one thing after another, and I was just so confused," Retes says. "There was no explanation." He was processed and strip-searched like any other inmate. When he asked if he could call his family or a lawyer, Retes says, he was simply ignored. So were his requests for a shower to wash away the still-burning tear gas and pepper spray.
> >
> > "That entire Thursday night, my body's on fire," Retes recalls. "My hands, my face…literally a heat I cannot describe. Just imagine being on fire and just not being able to do anything."
> >
> > The following morning, after a medical evaluation that included some mental health questions, Retes was placed in a suicide watch cell: a yellow concrete room with a thin mattress top, a tiny rectangular window, and constant light. "A guard sits there 24/7, writing down what I'm doing every 10 minutes, and I'm in there naked in a hospital dress," he says. Despite his many requests, he was never allowed to make a phone call.
> >
> > "That Sunday morning, close to afternoon…an officer walked up to the cell and said I was off suicide watch and I was going to be released. And he just walked away," says Retes. Hours later, another officer finally opened the door to his cell. As he changed back into his clothes and signed for his possessions, officers told him he was finally free to go after spending over three full days in custody.
> >
> > "So I asked them, like, 'So I was locked up in here, and I missed my daughter's birthday for no reason?'" he recalls. What followed, Retes says, was "the loudest silence ever."
> >
> > ...
> >
> > ... [Footage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7PwxMr0rG4) of the incident was widely available, yet the agency was still trying to avoid any accountability
> >
> > ...
> >
> > When Retes learned from his lawyers at the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm, just how difficult it would be to hold the officer involved in his case accountable, he was shocked. "If someone violates your rights, you should be able to get accountability and justice for what happened to you," says Retes. But after understanding the legal barriers ahead, Retes said it was like flipping a switch. "This is much bigger than just me," he says. "There's all these people that this is happening to."
> > The agents started yelling, Retes says. "Get the fuck out of here!" "Leave!" "Get back in your car!" "Pull over to the side!" "You're not going to work." "Work is closed." Retes asked for a badge number that he could give to his boss when he didn't show up on time. But that made the agents madder.
> >
> > Roughly three out of four ICE detainees have no criminal record, according to a November 2025 Cato Institute report, and are otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants—but some of the people arrested are, like Retes, U.S. citizens.
> >
> > "Literally the first words out of my mouth was that I was a U.S. citizen, that I'm just trying to get work…and they just didn't care," Retes says. "They were immediately hostile from the get-go."
> >
> > Rather than escalate any further, Retes got back into his car to follow the agents' directions and leave. But the agents unexpectedly moved forward, surrounded the car, and started banging on its windows and pulling on its door handles, telling him to get out. Another agent yelled at him to reverse, and another told him to pull over to the side of the road. "They're all yelling contradictory things when all I was already trying to do was leave like they were asking me to do," says Retes. "Like, what am I supposed to do?"
> >
> > Retes reversed into the right lane to get out of the way. As he pulled back, agents threw tear gas into the protesters behind him, engulfing his car. He was trapped.
> >
> > ...
> >
> > But then agents approached again, banging on the car windows and pulling on door handles. Retes, coughing and trying to catch his breath, pleaded with the officers that he was trying to leave. Then glass went flying everywhere. An agent immediately reached through Retes' shattered window to pepper-spray him in the face. A split second later, Retes was dragged out of his car.
> >
> > ...
> >
> > Eventually, agents put Retes into an unmarked car and drove him to a Navy base. There, authorities took his fingerprints, his picture, and a mouth swab for DNA. "They ended up reading me my rights and just told me that they were just investigating everything that happened…and why I was there," says Retes. "They never said I was being charged with anything. They never said that I was getting arrested."
> >
> > ...
> >
> > "When they took me to the prison…it was just like one thing after another, and I was just so confused," Retes says. "There was no explanation." He was processed and strip-searched like any other inmate. When he asked if he could call his family or a lawyer, Retes says, he was simply ignored. So were his requests for a shower to wash away the still-burning tear gas and pepper spray.
> >
> > "That entire Thursday night, my body's on fire," Retes recalls. "My hands, my face…literally a heat I cannot describe. Just imagine being on fire and just not being able to do anything."
> >
> > The following morning, after a medical evaluation that included some mental health questions, Retes was placed in a suicide watch cell: a yellow concrete room with a thin mattress top, a tiny rectangular window, and constant light. "A guard sits there 24/7, writing down what I'm doing every 10 minutes, and I'm in there naked in a hospital dress," he says. Despite his many requests, he was never allowed to make a phone call.
> >
> > "That Sunday morning, close to afternoon…an officer walked up to the cell and said I was off suicide watch and I was going to be released. And he just walked away," says Retes. Hours later, another officer finally opened the door to his cell. As he changed back into his clothes and signed for his possessions, officers told him he was finally free to go after spending over three full days in custody.
> >
> > "So I asked them, like, 'So I was locked up in here, and I missed my daughter's birthday for no reason?'" he recalls. What followed, Retes says, was "the loudest silence ever."
> >
> > ...
> >
> > ... [Footage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7PwxMr0rG4) of the incident was widely available, yet the agency was still trying to avoid any accountability
> >
> > ...
> >
> > When Retes learned from his lawyers at the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm, just how difficult it would be to hold the officer involved in his case accountable, he was shocked. "If someone violates your rights, you should be able to get accountability and justice for what happened to you," says Retes. But after understanding the legal barriers ahead, Retes said it was like flipping a switch. "This is much bigger than just me," he says. "There's all these people that this is happening to."