A citizen born in the United States who was fought against the earth, handcuffed and arrested in a vehicle as part of an immigration raid had a real identification that was fired as false, man’s cousin said on Friday.
The video of the arrest, broadcast by Telemundo News, showed the authorities grab Leonardo García Venegas, 25, while he was in a workplace in Foley, Alabama, Wednesday and bending his arms behind him. You can listen to someone out of the camera shouting: “He is a citizen.”
Garcia told news Telemundo that the authorities took their identification of his wallet and told him that he was false before handcanding him. The real ID is the identification that the law requires that US citizens have to travel through airports and enter federal buildings. It is considered a form of identification of greater security.
“Apparently, a real identification is no longer valid. It has a real identification,” said his cousin Shelah Venegas. “We all make sure to have the real identification and we review the protocols that the administration is asking for … it has its real identification and then they see it and I suppose that because its English is not fluid and/or because it is brown, it is false, it is not real.”
Garcia had told Telemundo news that “they grabbed me very badly” and that the wives were placed “very hard” on him.
Garcia said he was released from the vehicle where he was held after giving officials that arrested his social security number, who showed that he is an American citizen.
The arrest left Garcia, who was born in Florida, shook, particularly because the officers also arrested and arrested his brother, who is not legally in the country, Venegas said. He added that Garcia lived with his brother. His parents are from Mexico.
“I was actually quite sore when he returned,” Venegas said about Garcia. “He said his arms and his hands hurt. His dolls could see where he had all the brands of the wives … the way they put it on the floor, his knees were also hurting.”
She said they have been trying to find a lawyer, but the premises have told them that it is almost impossible to sue a federal agent. It is not clear in the video if the authorities were federal immigration agents or the application of the local law that carried out compliance tasks.
The National Security Department said in a statement to NBC News that Garcia interfered with an arrest during a directed work operation.
“He physically got between the agents and the issue tried to arrest and refused to comply with numerous verbal commands,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the DHS. “Anyone who actively obstructs the police in the performance of their jurors, including US citizens, of course, will face consequences that include arrest.”
The answer did not address the dismissal of Garcia’s identification.
Venegas said that García’s brother has signed deportation documents because the family did not want them to stop him “forever” as they have seen another family member, who was detained for months at a Louisian detention center.
“It is inhuman, what they are doing to our people. They are treated as if they were murderers,” he said.
Venegas said that immigration arrests are creating repercussions among Hispanics, even among US citizens.
“It’s about race now. It’s not about whether you’re legally or not,” he said.
His family has a fairly large hiring company, he said, “and many of the people who work with us are not working … They refuse to go to work. They said they will not go until these things are calm.”
Venegas added that most of his family work on his own and “we do the same as any other citizen.”
“It is crazy that we cannot be different, the color we are. We contribute to this country in the same way that all citizens do it with their taxes,” he said. “But we have to be the ones that we are going to work every time, we will be afraid that we will be discriminated.”
“I think of my family,” he said. “Although many of them are citizens, I think about how we all work in the same area in construction and cannot sit there because they could be harassed or attacked as my cousin did.”
