House Democrat Introduces Bill Guaranteeing $500,000 to U.S. Citizens Wrongfully Detained by Immigration Agents

A New Mexico Democrat wants to put a price tag on wrongly detaining an American citizen.

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández introduced the Justice for Citizens Wrongfully Detained by ICE Act on Thursday, Oct. 15. Her only co-sponsor at the time of writing is Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat.

What the bill does

The bill creates a specific cause of action for U.S. citizens arrested or detained by immigration officers, or by other officers enforcing immigration law, without a warrant or without probable cause on or after Jan. 20, 2025. Those citizens could sue the officer involved and the United States in federal district court.

If the plaintiff wins, the court would have to award $500,000. Add $100,000 for each day of detention after the first day.

The math adds up quickly. A citizen held for 10 days would collect $1.4 million. A citizen held for four months would collect more than $12 million.

Winners would also get reasonable attorney's fees and costs, plus injunctive or declaratory relief. Plaintiffs would have five years to file. Any award would come on top of whatever other compensation the law already provides.

The bill would bar officers from claiming absolute or qualified immunity and would waive the government's sovereign immunity for these suits. It would also permanently rescind unspent immigration enforcement money from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The numbers behind it

Leger Fernández says ProPublica's reporting prompted the legislation. The outlet's investigation documented 506 U.S. citizens detained by immigration agents since the second Trump administration began. By ProPublica's count, more than 100 of them were held after agents questioned their citizenship, and at least 70 were children or teenagers.

ProPublica has counted before. An earlier investigation last year found more than 170 citizens detained, and congressional Democrats announced a wide-ranging inquiry afterward. The count has roughly tripled since.

Leger Fernández pointed to Brian Garcia Morales, a citizen she says was deported and spent four months trying to get home. "ICE does not get to trample on your rights and walk away without consequence," she said. She also said detaining citizens is the purpose of the practice, "to terrorize our Latino and immigrant communities." That is her characterization of motive. No official has acknowledged it.

The latest case

California officials are now calling for an investigation into federal immigration officers who allegedly injured and detained Ricardo Gonzalez, a U.S. citizen. The allegations have not been adjudicated. ProPublica's Nicole Foy discussed the case and the broader count on PBS News Hour on Oct. 21.

What DHS says

The Department of Homeland Security rejects the premise. The federal government denies any pattern of agents detaining U.S. citizens. Asked about the bill, DHS repeated that it is not arresting citizens and called its operations "highly targeted."

A DHS spokesperson went further in a statement to Newsweek. Leger Fernández, the spokesperson said, "has shown more concern for criminal illegal aliens who've broken our laws and destroyed any possibility of ever remaining in our country than she ever has for Rachel Morin, Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, and the true victims of illegal alien crimes in America." The statement does not address any of the individual detentions in ProPublica's count.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has framed the department's current work around enforcement against immigrants who defraud federal benefit programs. DHS announced a nationwide operation on SNAP fraud this month.

The legal obstacle

Suing a federal officer is hard. Agents can claim immunity in civil suits and in state prosecutions, and they can move cases into federal court. People who accuse immigration agents of wrongdoing can sue only in a narrow set of circumstances. Existing law guarantees no minimum payout for unlawful detention.

Previous Democratic bills to change that have not passed. Some local prosecutors have opened investigations into the arrests of citizens or have prosecuted federal agents accused of wrongdoing.

Leger Fernández argues that consequences change behavior. Without legislation, she says, agents "will continue to violate the law, to violate their own policy, and to violate the Constitution without any consequences."

The open questions

Citizens have a Fourth Amendment right to be free from arrest without probable cause, and no one in the sources disputes that. The dispute is over scale and remedy. ProPublica says 506 citizens were detained. DHS says it does not arrest citizens.

The bill's fixed payouts would draw on taxpayer money, and the bill has no mechanism to separate a clear-cut wrongful arrest from a close call made on the street. Lawmakers have not said what a $12 million judgment would do to agency budgets.

The bill has one co-sponsor and a record of failed predecessors. Whether any committee takes it up, and whether California's call for an investigation into the Gonzalez case produces one, are the next things to watch.