Immigration agents have put civilians’ lives at risk using more than their guns

An agent in Houston put a teenage citizen into a chokehold, wrapping his arm around the boy’s neck, choking him so hard that his neck had red welts hours later. A black-masked agent in Los Angeles pressed his knee into a woman’s neck while she was handcuffed; she then appeared to pass out. An agent in Massachusetts jabbed his finger and thumb into the neck and arteries of a young father who refused to be separated from his wife and 1-year-old daughter. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he started convulsing.

After George Floyd’s murder by a police officer six years ago in Minneapolis — less than a mile from where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Good last week — police departments and federal agencies banned chokeholds and other moves that can restrict breathing or blood flow.

But those tactics are back, now at the hands of agents conducting President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Examples are scattered across social media. ProPublica found more than 40 cases over the past year of immigration agents using these life-threatening maneuvers on immigrants, citizens and protesters. The agents are usually masked, their identities secret. The government won’t say if any of them have been punished.

In nearly 20 cases, agents appeared to use chokeholds and other neck restraints that the Department of Homeland Security prohibits “unless deadly force is authorized.”

About two dozen videos show officers kneeling on people’s necks or backs or keeping them face down on the ground while already handcuffed. Such tactics are not prohibited outright but are often discouraged, including by federal trainers, in part because using them for a prolonged time risks asphyxiation.

We reviewed footage with a panel of eight former police officers and law enforcement experts. They were appalled. This is what bad policing looks like, they said. And it puts everyone at risk.

“I arrested dozens upon dozens of drug traffickers, human smugglers, child molesters — some of them will resist,” said Eric Balliet, who spent more than two decades working at Homeland Security Investigations and Border Patrol, including in the first Trump administration. “I don’t remember putting anybody in a chokehold. Period.”

“If this was one of my officers, he or she would be facing discipline,” said Gil Kerlikowske, a longtime police chief in Seattle who also served as Customs and Border Protection commissioner under President Barack Obama. “You have these guys running around in fatigues, with masks, with ‘Police’ on their uniform,” but they aren’t acting like professional police.

Over the past week, the conduct of agents has come under intense scrutiny after an ICE officer in Minneapolis killed Good, a mother of three. The next day, a Border Patrol agent in Portland, Oregon, shot a man and woman in a hospital parking lot.

Top administration officials rushed to defend the officers. Speaking about the agent who shot Good, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said, “This is an experienced officer who followed his training.”

Officials said the same thing to us after we showed them footage of officers using prohibited chokeholds. Federal agents have “followed their training to use the least amount of force necessary,” department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.

“Officers act heroically to enforce the law and protect American communities,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. Both DHS and the White House lauded the “utmost professionalism” of their agents.

Our compilation of incidents is far from complete. Just as the government does not count how often it detains citizens or smashes through vehicle windows during immigration arrests, it does not publicly track how many times agents have choked civilians or otherwise inhibited their breathing or blood flow. We gathered cases by searching legal filings, social media posts and local press reports in English and Spanish.

Given the lack of any count over time, it’s impossible to know for certain how agents’ current use of the banned and dangerous tactics compares with earlier periods.

But former immigration officials told us they rarely heard of such incidents during their long tenures. They also recalled little pushback when DHS formally banned chokeholds and other tactics in 2023; it was merely codifying the norm.

That norm has now been broken. One of the citizens whom agents put in a chokehold was 16 years old…

Immigration Agents Using Banned Chokeholds on U.S. Citizens — ProPublica