Are there actually U.S citizens being detained by ICE ?
Executive summary
Yes — U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE in recent months, often amid large interior enforcement operations and sometimes captured on video; congressional inquiries, advocacy groups, and local reporting document multiple incidents and patterns of wrongful detention even as ICE maintains its authority is aimed at noncitizens .
1. What reporters and lawmakers have documented: multiple citizen detentions
Local and national reporting shows multiple instances where people identifying as U.S. citizens were detained by ICE or Border Patrol agents: stepbrothers Edwin Godinez and Yair Napolés say they were stopped and detained in Salisbury, North Carolina, and that incident was reported by WUNC and summarized in longer compilations [1], two Target employees in Minnesota were reported by The Guardian to have been forced to the ground and bundled into an SUV by federal immigration agents in an encounter local leaders characterize as detaining U.S. citizens , and video and eyewitness accounts across states have produced additional examples compiled in local outlets .
2. Official and investigatory responses: subcommittee reports and proposed legislative fixes
A Senate subcommittee report has explicitly focused on detentions of U.S. citizens and detailed patterns the inquiry found, noting that ICE and CBP have nonetheless at times detained U.S. citizens and highlighting troubling practices the panel investigated . On the Hill, Representative Pramila Jayapal introduced an amendment aiming to bar ICE from detaining or deporting citizens during civil immigration enforcement, citing reporting that “ICE has detained hundreds of US citizens” and recent field testimony of citizens being held in facilities .
3. Why these detentions happen, according to reporting and legal experts
Reporting and legal analysis indicate several mechanisms for citizen detentions: misidentification, outdated databases, matching vague descriptions, and the sweep-like "dragnet" tactics used in some operations that ask workers for documentation on site . Legal commentators and civil-rights groups emphasize ICE lacks general authority to deport citizens and that wrongful detentions are supposed to be remediable, though advocates say systemic practices and rapid, large-scale operations increase the risk of errors .
4. The human cost and broader enforcement context
Advocacy groups and the American Immigration Council report that detention levels and use of new facilities—including tent camps—rose sharply in 2025, with deaths in custody increasing, and that the broader expansion of interior enforcement has coincided with more reported instances of citizens being caught up in operations . Local stories (for example in Minnesota and North Carolina) recount traumatic encounters, temporary restraints, and in some cases physical removal from homes or workplaces, which civil-rights advocates have flagged as evidence of overreach .
5. Conflicting claims, accountability gaps, and limits of the record
ICE and DHS have sometimes declined to comment on specific incidents reported in outlets like The Guardian and local stations, and some ICE statements characterize episodes as lawful stops or as involving noncitizens or other operational justifications; court fights and a federal judge in Minnesota pressing ICE leadership to appear in court signal institutional friction and contested accounts . The available reporting documents numerous cases and systemic trends but does not provide a comprehensive national count that can be verified here; assertions that “hundreds” of citizens have been detained come from advocacy and congressional sources synthesizing disparate reports rather than an ICE-published tally .
Conclusion: direct answer
Yes — documented cases and oversight reporting show U.S. citizens have in fact been detained by ICE and related federal immigration agents in recent enforcement operations, sometimes mistakenly and sometimes amid contested circumstances; the phenomenon is sufficiently widespread to have prompted congressional scrutiny and proposed legislative restrictions, even as governmental denial or differing operational accounts remain part of the record . Limitations: no single public ICE dataset in the provided sources gives a definitive national total within this reporting set, so the scale beyond documented incidents and subcommittee summaries cannot be precisely quantified here .