U.S.-Born Citizen Detained Under ICE Hold Despite Birth Certificate

A U.S. citizen was arrested for entering the state of Florida as an “unauthorized alien” under a state law that shouldn’t have been enforced in the first place.

Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez was set to remain in jail for 48 hours under an ICE hold, according to the Florida Phoenix. His mother and a community advocate presented his birth certificate and Social Security card during a hearing in Leon County, but the judge said that she had no authority to release him due to the court’s jurisdiction.

Lopez Gomez was released Thursday evening after his story received media attention and protesters gathered at the Leon County jail where he was being held.

Lopez Gomez, 21, was born in Georgia. According to court records, he was assigned a judge as well as a public defender. He appears to have been arrested and charged under an “anti-immigration” law passed in Florida two months ago, despite the fact that the law is currently under a temporary restraining order and isn’t supposed to be enforced.

It was only a matter of time before Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts swept up an American citizen, and it happened to be aided by local authorities in Florida. Before Trump was even sworn in as president, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis pledged his cooperation with the Trump administration’s attempts to deport as many immigrants as possible.

Why did local authorities completely disregard a federal court ruling in order to arrest Lopez Gomez, and then disregard the fact he’s a natural-born U.S. citizen? Is this a mistake, or are they taking their lead from the president, who is currently disregarding a court order from the Supreme Court?

* This piece has been updated to correct the nature of Lopez Gomez’s arrest.

This story has been updated with news of Lopez Gomez’s release.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement took violent steps earlier this week to arrest a Guatemalan man who not only has no criminal record but wasn’t even the target authorities were looking for, according to his lawyer.

Juan Francisco Méndez, a 29-year old Guatemalan immigrant, was arrested without a warrant Monday in New Bedford, Massachusetts—but that’s not the only shady thing about this arrest.

Méndez and his wife, Marilú Domingo Ortiz, were in their car when a pair of armed officers stopped them. In a video shared by The New Bedford Light, the couple told the officers that they were waiting for his lawyer to arrive before speaking with the agents. When Ortiz asked whether they had a warrant for her husband’s arrest, the officers did not respond. When asked if she could leave, they said, “No.”

In a statement, ICE told The New Republic that Méndez “refused to comply with officers’ instructions and resisted apprehension.”

The officers continued to ask Ortiz to roll down her window to speak. After some time, one of the officers, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, violently smashed the back window of Méndez’s car with what appeared to be a pickax.

“They forcibly removed me and my husband,” Ortiz said in Spanish in the video. “They pulled me out of the car violently. They treated me badly too.”

ICE said in its statement that it “concurs with the actions deemed appropriate by the officers on the scene who are trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation in a manner that ensures the success of the operation and prioritizes the safety of our officers.”

By the time Méndez’s immigration lawyer, Ondine Galvez Sniffin, arrived at the scene, it was too late for her to tell the officers they had taken the wrong man.

“They said they were looking for a certain individual, by a different name. And I said that’s not my client,” Sniffin told WBZ-TV CBS Boston. “They said, um, ‘He has prior entries to this country,’ and I said that’s not true. I know my client’s history, and that’s not him.”

Méndez, who has been in the country for two years with no criminal record, is undocumented and awaiting documentation that would solidify his asylum status, according to Sniffin.

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said that in detaining Méndez, ICE broke its long-standing practice of alerting city officials before conducting an arrest. The New Bedford Police Department spokesperson confirmed Mitchell’s statement, adding that ICE officers gave the wrong address when they finally did report to the police during the incident.

Mitchell said that communication with ICE has been “inconsistent” since the beginning of Donald Trump’s administration.

“We hear the Trump administration say that they’re prioritizing convicted criminals. I’ll be the first to say I want criminals removed from the streets of New Bedford,” Mitchell told the Light. “But it should matter to everybody if these people are not criminals and they’re being detained because their identity is mistaken, that they are still adjudicating their immigration status and are waiting for a hearing.”

The Light spoke with Méndez Wednesday. “We are not criminals. We are hardworking people who came here to fight for our families and for a better future,” Méndez said from a facility in Dover, New Hampshire. He added that he was being held with 30 or 40 other individuals detained for immigration issues.

Méndez’s arrest comes amid a sharp crackdown on undocumented immigrants by the Trump administration, which has begun carrying out expedited deportations of immigrants the government alleges are gang members who, more often than not, have no criminal history.

The Trump administration may have just revoked an international student’s visa because his church group caught too many fish. 

Suguru Onda, a Ph.D. candidate from Japan studying at Brigham Young University, was notified earlier this month that his student visa was being revoked because he was “identified in criminal records check,” Deseret News reported Wednesday.  

It’s unclear exactly why Onda’s name was flagged in a criminal records check. Other than a couple of speeding tickets, his only run-in with the law was during a fishing trip with his church group in 2019, when he was reported for harvesting more fish than his fishing license allowed. Onda didn’t catch any fish himself, but he was overseeing the group and held responsible for the violation. The charge was later dismissed.

Onda’s attorney, Adam Crayk, believes the fishing incident could’ve led to his name being identified, he told Deseret News. The father of five was not given an explanation for why his visa was being revoked, and the revocation notice itself was vague. 

“Individual identified in criminal records check and/or has had their visa revoked, service record has been terminated,” the notice read.

Before Donald Trump took office and waged war on higher education and the civil liberties of international students, visas were typically revoked for serious offenses and felonies, something a little worse than driving too fast or being in a group that caught too many fish. Since January, at least 901 students across 128 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked, according to a review of data from the Associated Press. 

On Wednesday, an immigration-focused law firm in Atlanta filed a lawsuit against Trump on behalf of 133 foreign students. The filing reveals some of the staggering reasons students believe they’re being targeted (the visas are often revoked without providing a specific reason), which range from expired license plates to speeding tickets. Add the violation of a fishing license to the list.

Onda’s attorney is pursuing various options to keep him in the country, but the aspiring computer scientist told Deseret News he’s already “packing everything” in case he needs to leave abruptly. He joins nearly 1,000 other students doing the same. 

Senator Chris Van Hollen’s attempt to check on the welfare of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration mistakenly deported to El Salvador, was rebuffed by the country’s military Thursday. 

The Democratic senator from Maryland traveled to El Salvador Wednesday, meeting with the country’s Vice President Felix Ulloa. The next day, he attempted to visit the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, a prison known for human rights abuses, where Abrego Garcia is being held. But less than two miles away from the prison, Van Hollen was stopped at a military checkpoint. 

According to USA Today, which was following Van Hollen’s motorcade, the checkpoint appeared to have been set up deliberately to stop the senator. 

“We were just denied entry into CECOT—the notorious prison in El Salvador where Mr. Abrego Garcia is being illegally held,” Van Hollen posted on X. “We were there for one simple reason: to check on his well-being, which his family and lawyers have not been allowed to do. We won’t stop fighting.”

The Trump administration has refused to do anything to have Abrego Garcia released, even though it has acknowledged in court that he was deported to El Salvador in error. Instead, it has repeatedly called him a gang member and terrorist with no evidence, and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele repeated the same false accusations to reporters in the White House on Monday. 

The refusal to allow Van Hollen into the prison is clearly politically motivated, as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been allowed to make propaganda videos in front of its inmates and Republican Representatives Riley Moore and Jason Smith got to tour the prison on Tuesday. Abrego Garcia’s well-being is clearly not a priority for the Trump administration or El Salvador’s government. What did they want to hide from Van Hollen?  

Elon Musk knows which members of Congress detest the courts as much as he does, and he wants to keep them around.

The billionaire gave more than $144,000 to more than two dozen Congress members who support impeaching judges or restricting their power, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. It’s rare to give money to candidates this soon before a midterm election, and an indication that Musk will do everything he can to help the GOP stay in power.

Some House members, such as Representative Brandon Gill of Texas, got the money from Musk almost immediately after introducing legislation to punish various judges. “I just introduced Articles of Impeachment against radical activist Judge James Boasberg,” Gill wrote on X on March 18. “He is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and should be removed from office.” The next day, Musk gave Gill’s committee $6,600, the Post reported.

Musk donated the same amount, which is the upper limit of the per-race maximum, to Senator Chuck Grassley, who introduced legislation to limit judicial powers, and Representative Derrick Van Orden, who introduced a bill to impeach U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer.*

As the Trump administration faces a flurry of lawsuits, Musk is desperately trying to discredit judges who rule against the president. He’s called for the impeachment of judges who tried to block the Department of Government Efficiency’s unlawful dismantling of federal agencies, offered people money to sign a petition against “activist judges,” and made dozens of ludicrous claims against his judicial enemies on social media.

“This is a judicial coup,” Musk posted on X in mid-March, after a judge blocked Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from serving in the military. “We need 60 senators to impeach the judges and restore rule of the people.”

Musk’s $144,000 contribution may not seem like much right now, but his financial support for candidates this soon before the 2026 midterm elections is a bad sign for the courts. He’s playing the long game and is doing everything he can to bolster the GOP’s relentless attack on the rule of law for years to come.

* Correction: Grassley did not call for Boasberg’s impeachment.