George Retes was heading to his job as a security officer in Ventura County, California, last year when he got caught up in an immigration raid near his job site.
A U.S. citizen, Retes got out of his car to identify himself and tell Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers that he needed to go to work.
Instead of letting the former Army infantryman and disabled veteran pass through, agents surrounded his car and threw tear gas behind it. They gave him conflicting instructions for driving his car, broke his window, discharged pepper spray in his face and then forced him to the ground.
According to Retes, the agents would not allow him to retrieve his wallet for identification. They loaded him into a vehicle with other detainees, drove him for processing at Port Hueneme and then on to the Metropolitan Detention Center, Los Angeles, where he sat for three days on solitary suicide watch, having been deemed by a social worker as a danger.
Retes was released, without ever being offered a phone call or a lawyer. On Tuesday, he will be surrounded by lawyers, law enforcement, company executives, politicians, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Supreme Court justices as a guest at President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union of his second term.
Accompanying the House Veterans Affairs Committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Mark Takano of California, Retes wants others to know that his wrongful detention, followed by what he said was a smear campaign by the Department of Homeland Security against him, can happen to anyone.
“I hope my presence represents that they just can’t lie and have it be okay. I represent everyone else this is happening to,” Retes said in an interview with Military Times.
Since the start of deportation operations under the Trump administration, ICE has arrested nearly 400,000 people, nearly 60% of whom have had prior charges or convictions, including 14% charged or convicted of violent crimes.
The remaining 40% have largely been living in the U.S. peacefully, albeit without legal immigration status, or waiting asylum decisions or changes to their visas. Some have been U.S. citizens and at least eight have been American veterans, according to The Guardian newspaper.
In January, two U.S. citizens — Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs nurse — were killed by federal agents while protesting immigration enforcement operations in the city.
While the operations had divided the country before the Minneapolis shootings, the deaths sparked outrage over the operations. According to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in February, roughly six in 10 U.S. adults believed the immigration enforcement operations have “gone too far,” with roughly 62% saying Trump has overstepped his bounds sending immigration agents into U.S. cities and using federal law enforcement officers at public protests.
Slightly over half — 52% — said the effort to deport immigrants living in the U.S. illegally has gone too far. The remainder said the operations have “been about right” (32%) or “not far enough” (14%).
Retes, 26, a former E-4, who deployed to Iraq from 2019 to 2020 and was honorably discharged in 2022, said what is going on in the U.S. is not okay.
“There’s really no other way to put it — it sucks. It’s so disappointing. This happened to me last year and seeing it just continue to happen and things getting worse and people dying … it just sucks,” Retes said.
Takano said he asked the former soldier to join him at the speech as an example of the overreach of the Trump administration and the “heavy-handed immigration policies.”
“George Retes is a U.S. citizen and an Iraq War veteran, and yet he was treated like an enemy by his own government,” Takano said in a statement. “His presence will speak volumes.”
In October, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement calling the illegal detention of Retes a “false claim.”
DHS officials said that Retes became violent, refused to comply with law enforcement and blocked their route by refusing to move his vehicle. He was arrested, they said, for assault.
Retes said none of the statements were true
“They can’t just say whatever they want and [it] be okay,” Retes said.
Shortly after Pretti was shot, U.S. officials including White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called him a “domestic terrorist.” They have since said they are looking further into the circumstances surrounding Pretti’s death.
Retes said he connected “deeply” with Pretti’s death, watching agents put Pretti’s hands around his back and hold him near the ground, and the aftermath.
He’d like the violence to stop and has filed a lawsuit against the federal government for violation of his constitutional rights and negligence.
“It could easily have been me. The only difference is that the officers doing everything to me weren’t as trigger happy,” Retes said.
The State of the Union is scheduled for 9 p.m. EST Tuesday and is expected to air live on all major networks as well as streaming on news sites, C-SPAN and YouTube.
Patricia Kime is a senior writer covering military and veterans health care, medicine and personnel issues.
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