George Retes, a 26-year-old U.S. citizen and Army veteran, isn’t staying quiet — five months after he says he was assaulted and detained by immigration agents on his commute to work as a security contractor outside Los Angeles.
“Your voice matters,” Retes told Raw Story. “Calling your representatives, calling your people in charge, letting your voice be heard: it matters.”
Retes is the face of a new $250,000 ad campaign from Home of the Brave, a nonprofit focused on portraying what it calls the “catastrophic harm” of President Donald Trump’s second administration.
In the one-minute ad, “The Veteran Who ICE Abducted — and Is Fighting Back,” Retes recounts how he was stopped by a line of “hostile” ICE agents who shattered his car window, pepper sprayed him in the face and threw him to the ground before detaining him over a weekend.
Meant as a direct response to recruitment and self-deportation ads from the Department of Homeland Security, the Home of the Brave ads will air on streaming services where DHS ads have appeared.
“It’s important to tell my story now because of everything that’s still going on,” Retes said.
“Even though everyone doesn’t see it every day, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”
Close to 200 U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE since Trump returned to power in January, ProPublica reported.
Retes, who served a tour in Iraq, said DHS has continually called him a “liar.”
In response to an op-ed he wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, DHS accused Retes via an X post of being violent and refusing to comply with law enforcement, leading to arrest for assault.
As CBP and ICE agents were executing criminal search warrants on July 10 at the marijuana sites in Camarillo, CA, George Retes—a U.S. citizen—became violent and refused to comply with law enforcement. He challenged agents and blocked their route by refusing to move his vehicle… pic.twitter.com/aKS2voKU3j — Homeland Security (@DHSgov) September 17, 2025
Two weeks later, a DHS press release again claimed Retes was arrested for assault.
Retes said he “100 percent” rejects claims that he was violent and he was never charged with any such crimes during the interaction with immigration agents.
“Something that the current administration is refusing to do is just take accountability,” Retes said
“Lying on my name, lying on people. It’s terrible.”
The new ad proves it, he said — by showing footage of his vehicle being swarmed by a line of immigration agents and then him being pinned to the ground.
“I take it with a grain of salt when they come out with these Tweets,” Retes said. “The proof is all there. If now you want to make stories, the court’s right there.”
‘F—–g do your job’
In an extended three-minute version of the video, Retes further explains how he was tear-gassed and how immigration agents zip-tied him and knelt on his back and neck while he was on his way to work security at a state-legal cannabis farm that ICE raided.
Retes is also working with a nonprofit public interest law firm, Institute for Justice, to sue the Trump administration under the Federal Tort Claims Act for the treatment he endured at the hands of federal immigration officers.
“It’s all out there, the footage, and they’re just imposing their version of reality,” Anya Bidwell, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, told Raw Story.
While in detention, Retes was put on suicide watch.
But “the most upsetting” part of the ordeal, he said, was that he missed his daughter’s third birthday celebration.
He told Raw Story he slept on a concrete bed in a room with a “tiny window” and lights switched on “24/7.”
He wasn’t allowed a shower, despite his “body essentially being on fire,” Bidwell said.
George Retes, a U.S. citizen, says he was detained by ICE on his way to work (Photo provided by Institute for Justice)
Retes said he was naked but for a hospital gown and “wasn’t able to flush the toilet on my own.”
“It was just an overall terrible experience, and it was something I would never want to relive, and I hope no one ever goes through,” Retes said.
Retes said he was suspended from his job with Securitas, a national security guard contractor, for three weeks following his detention.
“They basically said I had to prove I was innocent before I could go back to work,” Retes said.
The experience left “a bad taste in my mouth,” Retes said, so he quit the Securitas job and is looking for new employment while sharing his story.
Retes said his message to Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other government leaders was simple: “F—–g do your job.”
“Make this country better … right now,” Retes said, lamenting “prices going crazy. People are divided. Agents just doing whatever they want, violating rights.”
Holding out hope for Trump to stop “constantly trying to divide the country” is “scary,” Retes said.
But he is still hopeful for “for better days.”
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