George Retes is a 25-year-old U.S. Army veteran who served a tour in Iraq. On July 10, while on his way to work as a security guard at a Southern California cannabis farm, he was detained by federal immigration agents, despite telling them that he is an American citizen and that his wallet and identification were in his nearby car, Retes told me. While arresting him, the agents knelt on his back and his neck, he said, making it difficult for him to breathe. Held in a jail cell for three days and nights, he was not allowed to make a phone call, see an attorney, appear before a judge, or take a shower to wash off pepper spray and tear gas that the agents had used, according to the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm that is representing Retes. He worried about his two young children and missed his daughter’s birthday.
Mistreatment of American citizens by immigration authorities is not new. According to a 2021 Government Accountability Office report, the best available data indicate that Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 674 “potential” U.S. citizens, detained 121, and removed 70 during a five-year, six-month period that ended in 2020. We don’t yet know if detentions of U.S. citizens are becoming more common in President Donald Trump’s second term, but news outlets have documented more than a dozen such cases. And the Trump administration has ramped up immigration raids, rolled back due-process protections, and secured funding to quickly hire 10,000 additional ICE officers, all of which creates the conditions for more erroneous detentions—and raises the question of whether ICE can violate the rights of citizens with impunity.
“There must be some avenue to hold the federal government or its officers liable for violating George’s constitutional rights,” Marie Miller, one of Retes’s attorneys, told me.
Her strategy is to seek relief for Retes under the Federal Tort Claims Act, a law that allows private parties to sue for negligent or wrongful acts committed by federal employees acting within their job. The government has six months to resolve a claim, after which the claimant can sue. The hope is that the case “will chart a path to holding federal officers or their employer accountable,” Miller explained, “and that blazing the path to accountability will discourage this kind of treatment.” She said that ICE has acknowledged receiving Retes’s claim but has not yet responded.
ICE did not respond to my request for comment about the claim. But a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security put out a statement after the raid in which Retes was swept up, saying that the “US Attorney’s Office is reviewing his case, along with dozens of others, for potential federal charges related to the execution of the federal search warrant in Camarillo.” Retes was one of more than 360 people who were detained in the operation—“a mix of workers, family members of workers, protesters and passersby,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Late last month, I spoke with Retes, who detailed his story, starting with the day that his employer, Glass House Farms, one of California’s largest legal-cannabis companies, was raided. What follows has been edited for length and clarity.
You were driving to your job as a security guard when you encountered a bunch of men, some with ICE vests on, blocking the road. You’ve described the scene as chaotic. Can you tell me what you saw?
Cars bumper to bumper, people getting out walking down the street to try to see what’s happening, really a logjam. Making my way through was a task, and eventually I drove up to where a line of agents was just in the middle of the street keeping everyone away and blocking the road.
They were raiding your workplace. Were there signs or instructions on what to do?
Nothing. So I pull up a good distance away. I put my car in park. I get out. I say, I’m a U.S. citizen. I’m just trying to get to work. I have a job just like you guys. I have a family to feed. I got bills to pay. I’m not here to fight you guys. I’m not part of the protest. I’m literally just trying to get to work. They didn’t care and immediately got hostile. No one seemed to be in charge. Just all of them yelling at once.
Yelling what?
They were all yelling different things: Work is closed. You’re not going to work today. Get the fuck out of here. Leave, get back in your car. Pull over to the side. And then they started walking toward me in a line. I didn’t want to escalate. I wasn’t there to argue or to fight them. So I decided to get back in my car. I didn’t want any conflict. They surrounded my car. I’m telling them, “I’m leaving.” I’m trying to leave. And agents are banging on my driver’s- and passenger’s-side windows. Agents in front are telling me to reverse, pull over to the side, while other agents are trying to open my door and telling me to do something completely different, contradicting each other. I reversed out of the lane I was in to get out of the way. Then they let a bunch of their vehicles pass by.
How did the arrest happen?
They re-approached my car. I don’t know why they decided to re-approach, but they end up throwing tear gas behind my car. Now I’m kinda just trapped there, with tear gas filling up my car, choking. They’re banging on my window, telling me to reverse again, and I’m trying to tell them, How do you expect me to reverse when I can’t see? You hear me coughing. They just weren’t listening; they were still telling me to reverse, still trying to pull my car door open, still contradicting each other. Then one of the agents shatters my driver’s-side window, and another agent sticks his arm through it and immediately pepper-sprays me in the face. They dragged me out of the car. They threw me on the ground. An agent kneels on my back; another kneels on my neck. Others stand around and watch, as if I’m resisting or whatnot, but I wasn’t. I was trying to comply.
What were you thinking and feeling as this happened?
I knew the situation I was in. People in uniform abuse their power sometimes. It happens. I’ve seen it on the news. I always know: hands on the steering wheel; don’t fight. It’s just what I’ve been taught. Because I don’t want exactly what happened to me to happen. And so it was just crazy. I didn’t know what to do. They were just all so contradictory, and none of them was in charge. What to do was confusing. Then I didn’t know what was going to happen. When you have agents on your neck and back, and you’re telling them you can’t breathe and they don’t care, it’s scary.
You presumably faced chaotic situations while in the military. Do you think that helped you?
Yeah, I think it helped a lot. Just going through basic training, going through the bullshit together, being in the Army––you gotta keep your military bearing. So I’m pretty good in tense situations.
How long were you on the ground with a knee on your back and your neck?
It felt like forever, if I’m being honest with you. But I couldn’t give you a time. I remember them lifting me up and feeling like it was finally over. They walked me down to the Glass House, where I work, and the whole time they’re questioning each other, like, why was I arrested? Who arrested me? What were they going to do with me? Who would take me? They were unsure themselves. I’m just sitting in the dirt for maybe four hours.
After that, they put us [detainees] in an unmarked SUV and take us to a Navy base with this big open field. Every agency you could think of is there: FBI, people from the Navy, National Guard, Homeland Security, ICE. They take our fingerprints, they take our picture, they put real handcuffs on me, they handcuff my wrists and my ankles, and they put us back into the SUVs. Then they take us to downtown Los Angeles to the detention center.
Once you’re in the cell, what were you thinking?
It was just me and one other person in a cell, a professor who also got arrested that day. I was in disbelief. Why was I treated this way? Why am I even here to begin with? What did I do wrong?
And the entire time, my hands and body were burning from the tear gas. It felt like my hands were on fire. And they never let me wash it off. It was bad, and I thought it was never gonna end. They gave us these sandwiches when we first got in there. I took the sandwich out, and I filled up the sandwich bag with water. All night, I was alternating my hands trying to relieve the heat.
That next morning, they finished doing our intake. They do, like, a medical screening and ask how we’re doing. Then they sent me to see the psychiatric lady, and based off the answers I gave her, she said it was best that I get put on suicide watch. So until the point I was released, I was alone in a cell with a concrete block and a thin mattress on top. They never turn off the lights there. So it’s bright 24 hours a day. And there’s always a guard outside the room. It was terrible, feeling so confined, not being able to do anything, and not knowing what was going to happen.
Was there something in particular you were worried about, or just the overall uncertainty?
All I knew is that I was fucking taken. No one told me what I was there for. I thought no one knew––that I was literally gonna just disappear in there and never see my fucking kids again. You hear stories like that, when they take someone, and they just get lost in the system. It happens. It happens a lot. I didn’t want that to happen to me. I mean, I never did anything wrong.
Did anyone ever offer any explanation of why you were being arrested or how long you would be held?
No.
Were you worried about anyone in particular on the outside wondering what happened to you?
My kids. I told them that I’d be back later that day. I never showed up. That thought was in back of my head. My son is 8, and my daughter just turned 3––I missed her birthday while I was there. And not knowing if I was going to see them again and just—that’s so scary to think about.
Eventually, they released you without any charges. How did your kids react when you got home?
They’re super happy. The biggest smiles, calling for Dad, just a hug. It was the best feeling ever. Literally the best feeling.
And at some point, you decided to pursue legal action against the government. Talk me through that decision.
Because I know what they did wasn’t warranted. I know for an absolute fact I did nothing wrong. They were the aggressors the entire time. They were looking for a reason to do something. And I missed my daughter’s birthday. Then you just release me and say, No charges have been filed. I ask, So I was locked in here, and missed my daughter’s birthday for no reason, and you guys just stay silent? It’s so shitty and disrespectful. No “sorry,” not acknowledging that anything went wrong.
I want change. No one deserves to be treated like this. To have no rights. It’s just crazy to think about––that they can just mask up and take someone off the street, no questions asked, and you’re just gone. If they feel like it, they can just take you. No. Someone has to be held accountable. I hope change happens in the way that ICE goes about their business. I hope they get proper training. I hope that they’re just not able to racially profile people and just take people off the streets. I hope the government acknowledges that they could do wrong. I hope they take accountability. My case is a perfect chance for the government to say, Okay, we fucked up. You’re right. This isn’t right. And we’re not gonna try to hide it. We acknowledge what we did was wrong.
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