Mass Arrests by Trump’s ICE, CBP Repeatedly Fail Beneath Scrutiny — ProPublica

The Nationwide Guard troopers in desert camo piled out of unmarked vans in East Los Angeles final June, cordoning off East Sixth Road, a residential avenue lined with single household homes, and blocking a close-by highway resulting in an elementary college.

A squad of federal brokers moved in flinging flash-bang grenades — explosives designed to disorient — right into a small house earlier than storming inside. They’d come for Alejandro Orellana, a Marine Corps veteran and UPS worker accused of being a central determine in a secret confederacy of insurrectionists. A information video had proven the 30-year-old distributing water, meals and face shields to individuals protesting the Trump administration’s immigration roundups in Los Angeles.

Invoice Essayli, a former state legislator who leads the federal prosecutor’s workplace in Los Angeles, joined the raid together with a Fox Information crew.

With cameras rolling, Orellana, his mother and father and brothers had been led out in handcuffs as brokers searched their house.

On Fox Information, Essayli, sporting a blue FBI windbreaker, hyped the arrest of Orellana, a quiet, wiry man with an extended mane of coal-black hair. “It seems they’re well-orchestrated and coordinated, and well-funded,” he stated. “And at present was one of many first arrests — first key arrests — that we did.”

Essayli would cost Orellana with conspiracy — underneath a federal statute usually used to construct circumstances towards drug traffickers and arranged crime — and with aiding and abetting civil dysfunction.

Inside weeks, the prosecutor’s marquee case would quietly collapse. Brokers who searched Orellana’s home discovered little that might be thought-about incriminating, and prosecutors by no means charged anybody else as a part of the supposed conspiracy. By late July, they moved to have the costs dismissed.

It wouldn’t be the one such case.

Over the previous 10 months, President Donald Trump’s administration has made a lot of its success in sweeping by way of U.S. cities, capturing unauthorized immigrants and arresting individuals who publicly oppose the operations, routinely accusing dissenters of being home terrorists or extremists. Federal brokers have arrested a whole bunch of U.S. residents like Orellana — together with protesters, activists observing the immigration enforcement operations, bystanders and, in some circumstances, the members of the family of individuals focused for deportation.

Much less clear to the general public is what has occurred to these charged.

To seek out out, ProPublica and FRONTLINE combed by way of social media, courtroom data and information tales. Reporters recognized greater than 300 protesters and bystanders who had been arrested by federal brokers throughout immigration sweeps and had been accused of crimes similar to assaulting or interfering with regulation enforcement. 

However again and again these accusations fell aside underneath scrutiny. Our opinions of courtroom information discovered that statements made by the arresting officers had been repeatedly debunked by video footage. In additional than a 3rd of the circumstances, prosecutors shortly dismissed fees that couldn’t be substantiated, refused to file fees in any respect, or misplaced at trial. The tally of circumstances that finish this manner will seemingly climb as most of the arrests stay unresolved.

“What’s occurring now is just not similar to something that’s occurred up to now,” stated

Cuauhtémoc Ortega, the chief federal defender for the Central District of California, who personally represented Orellana and different protesters. “We’ve by no means had a scenario the place it looks as if you arrest first after which attempt to justify the explanations for the arrests later.”

The Division of Homeland Safety, which incorporates Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, didn’t reply to repeated requests for touch upon the arrests and declined to reply detailed questions from ProPublica and FRONTLINE.

However in a press release in response to an earlier story, DHS stated, “The First Modification protects speech and peaceable meeting — not rioting. DHS is taking cheap and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of regulation and defend our officers.”

Given the unprecedented nature of the city sweeps, it’s tough to match the speed of failed circumstances to a different time interval or context. However present and former federal prosecutors and different authorized specialists stated having that variety of arrests come to nothing is especially placing within the federal system, the place U.S. attorneys normally safe convictions or responsible pleas in additional than 90% of the circumstances they convey; solely 8.2% of federal prison circumstances had been dismissed in 2022, in keeping with information compiled by that courtroom system.

The failures spotlight the challenges of sending massive numbers of federal brokers into main cities to conduct roving immigration sweeps: They aren’t accustomed to coping with crowds of offended protesters 

Border Patrol brokers are usually stationed on the border the place their day-to-day work entails scooping up individuals who have crossed illegally. ICE brokers, who usually work in city settings, had little prior expertise dealing with hostile crowds. And FBI brokers, who’ve aided within the immigration sweeps, would usually spend months or years painstakingly amassing proof earlier than making arrests.

That lack of expertise in avenue policing and crowd management, coupled with the Trump administration’s demand for enormous numbers of deportations, led brokers to make a wave of unjustified arrests, authorized specialists say.

To make certain, protesters have usually engaged in hostile conduct, hurling expletives, getting in brokers’ faces and infrequently turning into violent. A lady in Minnesota is accused of biting off a part of an agent’s finger throughout a scuffle after the killing of Alex Pretti in late January; in Los Angeles, an officer outdoors an immigration detention facility suffered a dislocated finger after a protester allegedly grabbed his bulletproof vest and shook him. 

However the brokers’ conduct has additionally regularly been violent. As ProPublica and FRONTLINE reported final yr, they’ve routinely shot pepper balls or tear fuel at protesters in ways in which violate their very own guidelines, inflicting extreme accidents to demonstrators in a number of cities. 

“The brokers, they don’t know easy methods to function in these conditions,” stated Christy Lopez, a former Justice Division legal professional who spent years investigating misconduct by regulation enforcement. Their conduct, she stated, “is on par with the worst protest policing and simply regulation enforcement that I’ve seen from any division, even of their worst days.

In its earlier assertion, DHS stated that “rioters and terrorists” have repeatedly attacked immigration brokers, however ICE and Customs and Border Safety personnel “are educated to make use of the minimal quantity of drive essential to resolve harmful conditions to prioritize the security of the general public and themselves.”

The arrests aren’t with out consequence. Even unsuccessful prosecutions may be expensive and emotionally taxing for defendants, stated Jared Fishman, a former profession prosecutor within the Division of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The aggressive ways of the brokers and the gleeful social media posts by DHS accusing protesters of great crimes, Fishman stated, have an effect on individuals’s willingness to publicly problem the mass deportation insurance policies. 

“If the aim of the Trump administration is to maintain individuals out of the streets, then it doesn’t matter if the persons are getting convicted,” stated Fishman, now the manager director of the Justice Innovation Lab, a nonprofit centered on making a extra equitable and efficient justice system. “I’m certain it’s having a chilling impact.”

After reviewing information and a few courtroom data for ProPublica and FRONTLINE, Fishman stated, “The numbers appear to point a sample and follow of unlawful arrests.”

“We Should Establish Him”

The crackdown on protesters started in June of 2025, when the Division of Homeland Safety launched its wave of main immigration sweeps in Southern California. The marketing campaign was led by Gregory Bovino, a veteran Border Patrol chief who usually presided over a distant stretch of sand and scrub deep within the state’s Imperial Valley.

Bovino from the beginning inspired his brokers to close down or arrest protesters.

“Arrest as many individuals that contact you as you wish to. These are the overall orders, all the best way to the highest,” Bovino informed his officers, footage from an agent’s body-worn digital camera exhibits. “All people fucking will get it in the event that they contact you.”

He went on to remind them that their actions ought to be “authorized, moral, ethical” whereas encouraging them to make use of so-called much less deadly weapons on protesters.

“We’re gonna take a look at transport tractor trailers filled with that shit in right here,” he stated. 

Bovino’s forces repeatedly fired tear fuel canisters and rubber bullets on the heads and faces of demonstrators and journalists. 

Bovino’s aggressive ways sparked intense opposition from Angelenos, together with these gathered within the streets in entrance of the sprawling federal workplace advanced in downtown Los Angeles on June 9. 

That day Orellana drove his Ford F-150 pickup truck loaded with bottled water, snacks and cardboard packing containers containing Uvex model face shields — clear plastic masks designed to guard industrial staff from flying particles and chemical splashes — to the protest.

When he arrived in entrance of the federal constructing, one other particular person hopped into the mattress and started handing out the provides to protesters gathered outdoors the doorway.

Orellana informed FRONTLINE and ProPublica that he determined to assist distribute the provides after watching federal brokers fireplace tear fuel and rubber bullets into crowds at an earlier demonstration.

“A bunch of us took it upon ourselves to, you already know, go downtown and provides out these assets — the meals, water and naturally the PPE,” he stated, referring to non-public protecting gear.

Video and pictures shortly made their method onto social media. An X person with greater than 30,000 followers posted a photograph of Orellana. “{A photograph} of the person delivering packing containers of fuel masks to the rioters has emerged,” wrote the poster. “We should determine him, so we will observe down who’s funding this coordinated assault.”

From there the thread was picked up by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has an unlimited viewers on the platform. Jones, who repeatedly claimed that financier and philanthropist George Soros was funding the protests, finally named Orellana as the motive force of the pickup. Greater than two million individuals noticed the submit. 

Inside 48 hours, the troopers and federal brokers arrived to arrest Orellana.

Over the subsequent 5 months, they arrested multiple hundred U.S. residents in Los Angeles and different cities in Southern California — most of them demonstrators — charging them with assaulting federal regulation enforcement personnel or interfering with brokers’ actions. Others had been accused of damaging authorities property. At the very least 16, like Orellana, had been charged with conspiracy, which may carry a sentence of as much as six years in jail.

ProPublica and FRONTLINE discovered that greater than a 3rd of these circumstances crumbled. In eight situations, juries acquitted defendants at trial. However extra regularly, prosecutors dropped fees when the claims made by immigration officers and brokers didn’t match video proof or different inconsistencies emerged. In a number of circumstances, prosecutors declined to file fees in any respect. 

There have been some profitable prosecutions: 32 of the 116 individuals whose arrests in California we reviewed have been convicted, many pleading responsible to misdemeanor fees. And in late February, jurors convicted two activists on stalking fees after they livestreamed themselves following an immigration agent to his house; the pair had been acquitted of conspiracy.

As we speak 38 circumstances are nonetheless pending.

Essayli has acknowledged on social media that his workplace introduced greater than 100 circumstances and secured convictions in additional than half of them. When requested concerning the discrepancy between his claims and the info compiled by ProPublica and FRONTLINE, he declined to remark. 

“The U.S. legal professional’s workplace doesn’t lose circumstances as a result of they’re unhealthy attorneys,” stated Carley Palmer, who spent eight years as a federal prosecutor within the workplace Essayli now runs. “They’re glorious trial attorneys. So in the event that they’re shedding a case, it could imply that the proof isn’t there, or it could imply that the group doesn’t imagine it ought to be a federal crime.”

Palmer, who’s now in non-public follow, stated the glut of protest and low-level prison immigration circumstances have shifted assets away from the advanced prosecutions the DOJ is uniquely outfitted to deal with: environmental crimes, public corruption, monetary fraud, cyberscams, civil rights violations.

Essayli declined to be interviewed for this story or an accompanying FRONTLINE documentary set to air Tuesday. He was appointed by the Trump administration in early 2025, however he has by no means been confirmed by the Senate, elevating ongoing questions concerning the legality of his function as high prosecutor for the area. His workplace didn’t reply to detailed questions despatched by electronic mail.

Like Orellana, Julian Pecora Cardenas, 31, was charged with conspiracy final summer time after following a convoy of federal brokers in his automotive.

On the morning of July 5, Pecora Cardenas adopted vans filled with Border Patrol brokers after they left a Coast Guard station in San Pedro, south of Los Angeles, livestreaming their actions on Instagram. “It’s each citizen’s obligation to conduct oversight of their authorities,” he stated. “I used to be inside my First Modification rights.”

After roughly half-hour, the brokers stopped, pulled Pecora Cardenas from his Hyundai and slammed him to the pavement. “I truthfully thought it was going to be like a George Floyd second,” Pecora Cardenas recalled in an interview, alleging that a number of brokers pinned him to the asphalt with their knees. He suffered a concussion, wanted stitches over his left eye and wore an orthopedic collar to stabilize his injured neck.

Federal prosecutors charged Pecora Cardenas and one other activist with conspiracy to impede the federal brokers, saying that they “had been illegally maneuvering their autos by way of visitors, cease lights, and cease indicators to remain behind the agent’s autos,” that they tried to dam the Border Patrol autos, and that they created “hazardous situations on the highway.”

Pecora Cardenas’ personal video of the day’s occasions informed a unique story. The footage, which ProPublica and FRONTLINE have reviewed, contradicts the claims that the lads had interfered with the brokers. Inside days of seeing the photographs, Essayli’s workplace jettisoned the costs “within the curiosity of justice.”

Pecora Cardenas hasn’t tried to watch federal brokers or take part in a protest since his arrest. “I don’t wish to be assaulted once more. I don’t wish to wind up again in federal jail for one thing that I didn’t do.”

“They Had been Simply Randomly Grabbing Folks”

When Bovino, the Border Patrol chief, left California and took his forces to Illinois final fall, their give attention to protesters intensified.

In roughly one month, federal brokers arrested greater than 100 Americans, lots of them activists taking part in demonstrations or documenting the actions of immigration brokers as their convoys of rented SUVs rolled by way of the streets of Chicago and surrounding communities.

However Justice Division prosecutors in Chicago had much less success prosecuting these arrested than their friends in California.

On the morning of Oct. 3, 2025, about 2 hundred demonstrators gathered close to the ICE facility in Broadview, a small city within the western suburbs of Chicago. Tucked away in a quiet industrial park, the nondescript constructing had develop into the locus of ongoing protests since Bovino and his forces had arrived in Illinois.

Then-Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem, accompanied by a DHS video crew, was on web site that day sporting a baseball cap and a black ballistic vest.

Additionally current was Benny Johnson, a outstanding podcaster and on-line influencer who’s near the Trump administration. Johnson, who had introduced his personal digital camera crew to shoot video for his YouTube channel and different social media accounts, was successfully embedded with Noem, Bovino and the immigration brokers.

At about 9 a.m., Bovino and a phalanx of closely armed brokers in fight gear started striding down Harvard Road towards the protesters. “Stroll slowly,” Bovino informed his males.

And not using a bullhorn or any type of amplification, Bovino knowledgeable the group that they had been being dispersed. Then he and his colleagues started shoving individuals to the bottom and arresting them.

In a matter of minutes, a dozen protesters had been handcuffed. Three arrestees interviewed by ProPublica and FRONTLINE informed us they had been confused as a result of they’d been standing in a “free speech zone” arrange by state officers. 

“I felt any person seize my shoulder and pull me to the bottom,” stated Juan Muñoz, a enterprise proprietor and elected chief in close by Oak Park Township. “And as soon as I fell onto my again, that’s after I noticed it was Greg Bovino.”

Kyle Frankovich, a Harvard information scientist and Chicago resident, was additionally arrested. “They had been simply randomly grabbing individuals,” he recalled. “There was nowhere to go, individuals had been falling far and wide, and several other of the individuals they arrested merely had the misfortune of tripping over the entire different protesters” as federal brokers surged into the group.

Frankovich stated FBI brokers who questioned him requested who had paid for him to take part within the demonstration and who “coated the transportation value so that you can be right here at present.”

Johnson’s video crew and a DHS digital camera crew filmed the arrested protesters as they had been lined up outdoors the ICE constructing, whereas Noem appeared on. DHS posted pictures of Frankovich in handcuffs on X and Fb with the message, “We’ll NOT permit violent activist to put palms on our regulation enforcement.”

Johnson, who has greater than greater than 4 million followers on X and greater than 6 million subscribers on YouTube, posted a video on X panning throughout the arrested protesters and wrote: “I noticed dozens of Democrat home terrorists arrested at present for VIOLENT ASSAULT on federal regulation enforcement. Each activist right here attacked ICE brokers in broad daylight only for imposing American regulation.” He made the identical declare in an almost 13-minute-long YouTube video.

Such social media content material had develop into a central characteristic of the Trump administration’s deportation marketing campaign. DHS, Border Patrol and a raft of allied social media influencers usually produced slick movies exhibiting brokers in motion: driving in helicopters, striding by way of metropolis streets clutching rifles, breaking down doorways, and apprehending immigrants and activists. 

However on that day in Chicago, DHS had strayed removed from the information. And so had Johnson, a 38-year-old former journalist who turned to social media after being embroiled in plagiarism scandals at BuzzFeed and the Impartial Journal Evaluate. 

After about eight hours in custody, Frankovich, Muñoz and practically all of the others had been launched with out fees. In the long run, just one particular person could be prosecuted.

Neither DHS nor Johnson have taken the posts down. Johnson didn’t reply to emailed requests for remark.

The lone particular person charged with a crime that day was Cole Sheridan, who was accused of attacking Bovino and sending him to the hospital with an injured groin muscle.

Sheridan spent three and a half days in jail — “most likely probably the most disagreeable factor I’ve ever needed to expertise,” he stated in an interview with FRONTLINE and ProPublica — earlier than being launched.

In courtroom, a prosecutor stated that Sheridan had thrown a punch at Bovino and pushed him, transcripts present.

The proof introduced by the Justice Division, although, was slim. Bovino didn’t put on a physique digital camera, so prosecutors relied on video from the physique digital camera of Border Patrol agent Jason Epperson. But it surely didn’t present Sheridan assaulting anybody — although he did name Bovino “a fucking fool.” In statements to investigators, Bovino and Epperson had provided conflicting accounts of the encounter.

A few month after Sheridan was arrested, prosecutors moved to dismiss the case after a bystander video surfaced exhibiting clearly that Sheridan hadn’t assaulted Bovino.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever skilled one thing really that weird and absurd as, like, seeing a regulation enforcement agent concoct a story to arrest me, to press fees towards me,” stated Sheridan, who describes himself as intensely non-public and was initially reluctant to speak publicly about his arrest. “That was extraordinarily unnerving.”

He stays fearful that he’ll be harassed and even bodily attacked due to the inflammatory social media posts about him. “What a farce. Each ingredient of it felt staged,” he stated. 

In a press release to ProPublica and FRONTLINE, Chicago U.S. Lawyer Andrew Boutros stated, “Our willingness to be open-minded and dismiss circumstances — or not file fees within the first place — displays our dedication to do the correct factor even in these circumstances the place a criminal offense was dedicated and the conduct in query clearly falls outdoors any protected First Modification exercise.” He declined to remark immediately on Sheridan’s case.

FRONTLINE and ProPublica confirmed video of Sheridan’s arrest to Lopez, the previous Justice Division legal professional. “It’s only a gross abuse of energy,” she stated. “And we’ve nearly normalized that that is how federal regulation enforcement behaves now. They simply arrest individuals.”

Of the 109 arrests that ProPublica and FRONTLINE documented within the Chicago space, federal prosecutors dropped fees in at the very least 75 circumstances.

Felony Expenses Downgraded

When Bovino and his forces arrived in North Carolina final November, they had been greeted by protesters against the deportation sweeps, as that they had been in earlier cities.

Heather Morrow was one among them. She had joined a small group of demonstrators, chanting and banging on metallic dishes outdoors an immigration facility in Charlotte when ICE officers confronted the group. 

They handcuffed Morrow, 45, and one other activist, stuffed them at the back of a federal car and, in keeping with Morrow, saved them there for hours earlier than lastly taking her to jail.

“I used to be so traumatized,” Morrow, a college bus driver and canine boarder, stated in an interview. “I didn’t count on them to be so overly aggressive. I actually confirmed up there anticipating dialog, making them come to their senses.”

After a full day and evening in custody, she was launched to face federal felony assault fees. A Division of Justice press launch accused her of attacking an ICE officer simply as he confirmed up for his work shift, grabbing his shoulders and attempting to leap on his again.

However a shaky cellphone video circulating on social media confirmed what gave the impression to be a really totally different scene. In it, an officer comes from behind and abruptly tackles Morrow to the pavement. The video doesn’t present her assaulting anybody.

When prosecutors noticed the video, they dumped the felony fees. However they promptly filed a brand new misdemeanor case towards Morrow and the opposite activist, alleging the pair impeded ICE officers and didn’t comply with their orders. It took a month for Morrow to get her cellphone again from federal custody, whereas her different confiscated possessions, together with her keys, have been misplaced, Morrow’s legal professional stated. As a result of she’s on pretrial probation, the federal authorities has seized her passport. Morrow has pleaded not responsible, and her case is ongoing.

In Handcuffs and Intimidated

By early December, Bovino had introduced his aggressive marketing campaign and his social media crew to Minnesota. Inside weeks, two activists — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — had been shot and killed by immigration brokers. The Trump administration instantly portrayed Good as an extremist; Bovino claimed that Pretti was planning to kill federal personnel when he was shot to demise.

The killings, which sparked nationwide outcry, would immediate the administration to recalibrate. By Jan. 26, Bovino had been demoted and despatched again to his house station within the California desert. 

However immigration brokers continued to roam the Twin Cities, and activists continued to get arrested.

Civil rights attorneys from across the nation gathered in a Minneapolis convention room on Jan. 30 to debate these arrests.

Throughout a break for lunch, Jon Feinberg, president of the Nationwide Police Accountability Undertaking, stepped out of the room and spoke to reporters. “To be charged with a federal crime is one thing that’s life-altering,” stated Feinberg, who relies in Philadelphia. “The implications of being accused and presumably convicted of a federal offense are devastating, particularly when individuals haven’t engaged in prison conduct from any cheap particular person’s perspective.”

ProPublica and FRONTLINE have recognized practically 80 arrests stemming from the Minnesota immigration sweeps. Many of the circumstances are nonetheless ongoing, although a handful have been dismissed. 

Daniel Rosen, the U.S. legal professional for Minnesota, didn’t reply to requests for remark.

A kind of arrested was Rebecca Ringstrom, who lives in Blaine, a quiet suburb north of Minneapolis.

Ringstrom, 42, is a member of an activist group that tracks immigration brokers as they transfer round Blaine. “There was a car with 4 brokers inside that I might see. All 4 had been in tactical gear,” she stated in an interview with ProPublica and FRONTLINE. “I used to be in a position to take a look at the plate and see that it was a confirmed ICE car.”

Behind the wheel of her Kia, she started following them; Ringstrom insists her driving was secure and lawful. However in a matter of minutes, she’d been arrested and accused of interfering with federal regulation enforcement.

Ringstrom stated an agent on the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Constructing, the place she was briefly held after her arrest, stated he wished he’d arrested her — as a result of he would’ve made the expertise extra disagreeable and violent. “There was no motive to say that. I’m already right here. I’m in handcuffs. It’s only a solution to intimidate,” she recalled.

She was charged with interfering with a federal agent and issued a discover of violation — basically a ticket — for the misdemeanor offense. Since then, Ringstrom has lined up a professional bono lawyer, however she has additionally misplaced her job, “seemingly because of the ongoing protection” of her arrest.

She is scheduled to make her first courtroom look later this month.