ICE agents have been caught using chokeholds, knee-to-neck restraints, and other dangerous tactics that federal law enforcement banned after George Floyd’s murder—and they’ve done it more than 40 times in the past year alone.
A new ProPublica investigation found federal immigration agents routinely violating use-of-force restrictions during Trump’s supercharged deportation campaign, including nearly 20 cases where chokeholds were deployed without authorization for deadly force.
The findings come just days after an ICE agent murdered 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.
THE DETAILS: The victims include a 16-year-old U.S. citizen named Arnoldo Bazan, who was put in a chokehold at a Houston McDonald’s while his father was being arrested. Red welts covered his neck.
“I felt like I was going to pass out and die,” the tenth grader told ProPublica. DHS claimed his father rammed a federal vehicle—a charge he was never actually brought up on, and video reviewed by ProPublica doesn’t support the claim.
In Los Angeles, a masked ICE agent pressed his knee into a handcuffed woman’s neck until she appeared to lose consciousness. Amanda Trebach, an intensive care nurse who was monitoring the agents during a sting operation, said: “I knew that the amount of pressure being placed on the back of my neck could definitely hurt me.”
In Massachusetts, an agent jabbed fingers into a young father’s neck and arteries as he resisted being separated from his family, causing him to convulse.
OF COURSE, the Trump administration is defending all of this. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed agents use “the least amount of force necessary,” while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem insisted the agent who killed Renee Nicole Good “followed his training.”
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson praised their “utmost professionalism.”
BUT BUT BUT: The people who actually train these agents couldn’t disagree more. “I don’t remember putting anybody in a chokehold. Period,” said Eric Balliet, a former Homeland Security Investigations and Border Patrol official who reviewed the footage.
Marc Brown, a former police officer who taught ICE agents, was blunt: “Your arm underneath the neck, like a choking motion? No!” Former Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske said: “If this was one of my officers, he or she would be facing discipline.”
Former Baltimore official Danny Murphy called it “the kind of action which should get you fired.”
WHY IT MATTERS: Federal law enforcement agencies specifically banned chokeholds and similar restraint tactics after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
These techniques are restricted to situations where deadly force is authorized—meaning when someone’s life is in imminent danger. Kneeling on necks and backs, keeping handcuffed people face-down—these practices are officially discouraged because they can cause asphyxiation.
And yet ICE agents, hailed by Trump as “patriots,” are doing it anyway, to citizens and immigrants alike, with apparent impunity. The administration isn’t just ignoring the violations—they’re actively defending them while a woman lies dead in Minneapolis.