{"id":291191,"date":"2025-07-25T17:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T17:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291191\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T17:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T17:51:10","slug":"immigration-agents-told-a-teenage-us-citizen-youve-got-no-rights-he-secretly-recorded-his-brutal-arrest-us-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291191\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: \u2018You\u2019ve got no rights.\u2019 He secretly recorded his brutal arrest | US immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the morning of 2 May, Florida<\/a> teenager Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio was driving to his landscaping job in North Palm Beach with his mother and two male friends when they were pulled over by the Florida highway patrol.<\/p>\n

In one swift moment, a traffic stop turned into a violent arrest.<\/p>\n

A highway patrol officer asked everyone in the van to identify themselves, then called for backup. Officers with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) arrived on the scene.<\/p>\n

Video footage of the incident captured by Laynez-Ambrosio, an 18-year-old US citizen, appears to show a group of officers in tactical gear working together to violently detain the three men*, two of whom are undocumented. They appear to use a stun gun on one man, put another in a chokehold and can be heard telling Laynez-Ambrosio: \u201cYou\u2019ve got no rights here. You\u2019re a migo, brother.\u201d Afterward, agents can be heard bragging and making light of the arrests, calling the stun gun use \u201cfunny\u201d and quipping: \u201cYou can smell that \u2026 $30,000 bonus.\u201d<\/p>\n

The footage has put fresh scrutiny on the harsh tactics used by US law enforcement as the Trump administration<\/a> sets ambitious enforcement targets to detain thousands of immigrants every day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal government has imposed quotas for the arrest of immigrants,\u201d said Jack Scarola, an attorney who is advocating on behalf of Laynez-Ambrosio and working with the non-profit Guatemalan-Maya Center, which provided the footage to the Guardian. \u201cAny time law enforcement is compelled to work towards a quota, it poses a significant risk to other rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chokeholds, stun guns and laughter<\/p>\n

The incident unfolded at roughly 9am, when a highway patrol officer pulled over the company work van, driven by <\/strong>Laynez-Ambrosio\u2019s <\/strong>mother, and discovered that she had a suspended license. Laynez-Ambrosio said he is unsure why the van was pulled over, as his mother was driving below the speed limit.<\/p>\n

Laynez-Ambrosio hadn\u2019t intended to film the interaction \u2013 he already had his phone out to show his mom \u201ca silly TikTok\u201d, he said \u2013 but immediately clicked record when it became clear what was happening.<\/p>\n

The arrest of an undocumented man in Florida, as caught on video by Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio on 2 May 2025. Photograph: Screengrab from video by Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio\/Courtesy of the Guatemalan-Maya Center<\/p>\n

The video begins after the van has been pulled over and the border patrol had arrived. A female officer can be heard asking, in Spanish, whether anyone is in the country illegally. One of Laynez-Ambrosio\u2019s friends answers that he is undocumented. \u201cThat\u2019s when they said, \u2018OK, let\u2019s go,\u2019\u201d Laynez-Ambrosio recalled.<\/p>\n

Laynez-Ambrosio said things turned aggressive before the group even had a chance to exit the van. One of the officers \u201cput his hand inside the window\u201d, he said, \u201cpopped the door open, grabbed my friend by the neck and had him in a chokehold\u201d.<\/p>\n

Footage appears to show officers then reaching for Laynez-Ambrosio and his other friend as Laynez-Ambrosio can be heard protesting: \u201cYou can\u2019t grab me like that.\u201d Multiple officers can be seen pulling the other man from the van and telling him to \u201cput your fucking head down\u201d. The footage captures the sound of a stun gun as Laynez-Ambrosio\u2019s friend cries out in pain and drops to the ground.<\/p>\n

Laynez-Ambrosio said that his friend was not resisting, and that he didn\u2019t speak English and didn\u2019t understand the officer\u2019s commands. \u201cMy friend didn\u2019t do anything before they grabbed him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio, 18, filmed his own arrest in Florida. Photograph: The Palm Beach Post\/Reporter Valentina Palm<\/p>\n

In the video, Laynez-Ambrosio can be heard repeatedly telling his friend, in Spanish, to not resist. \u201cI wasn\u2019t really worried about myself because I knew I was going to get out of the situation,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I was worried about him. I could speak up for him but not fight back, because I would\u2019ve made the situation worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laynez-Ambrosio can also be heard telling officers: \u201cI was born and raised right here.\u201d Still, he was pushed to the ground and says that an officer aimed a stun gun at him. He was subsequently arrested and held in a cell at a CBP station for six hours.<\/p>\n

Audio in the video catches the unidentified officers debriefing and appearing to make light of the stun gun use. \u201cYou\u2019re funny, bro,\u201d one officer can be overheard saying to another, followed by laughter.<\/p>\n

Another officer says, \u201cThey\u2019re starting to resist more now,\u201d to which an officer replies: \u201cWe\u2019re going to end up shooting some of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later in the footage, the officers move on to general celebration \u2013 \u201cGoddamn! Woo! Nice!\u201d \u2013 and talk of the potential bonus they\u2019ll be getting: \u201cJust remember, you can smell that [inaudible] $30,000 bonus.\u201d It is unclear what bonus they\u2019re referring to. Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s recent spending bill includes billions of additional dollars<\/a> for Ice that could be spent on recruitment and retention tactics such as bonuses.<\/p>\n

Laynez-Ambrosio said his two friends were eventually transferred to the Krome detention center in Miami. He believes they were released on bail and are awaiting a court hearing, but said it has been difficult to stay in touch with them.<\/p>\n

Laynez-Ambrosio\u2019s notice to appear in court confirms that the border patrol arrived on the scene, having been called in by the highway patrol. His other legal representative, Victoria Mesa-Estrada, also confirmed that border patrol officers transported the three men to the border patrol facility.<\/p>\n

The Florida highway patrol, CBP, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to requests for comment before publication.<\/p>\n

\u2018We are good people\u2019<\/p>\n

Laynez-Ambrosio was charged with obstruction without violence and sentenced to 10 hours of community service and a four-hour anger management course. While in detention, he said, police threatened him with charges if he did not delete the video footage from his phone, but he refused.<\/p>\n

Scarola, his lawyer, said the charges were retaliation for filming the incident. \u201cKenny was charged with filming [and was] alleged to have interfered with the activities of law enforcement,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut there was no intended interference \u2013 merely the exercise of a right to record what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February, Florida\u2019s governor, Ron DeSantis<\/a>, signed an agreement between the state and the Department of Homeland Security allowing Florida highway patrol troopers to be trained and approved by Ice<\/a> to arrest and detain immigrants. While such agreements have been inked across the US, Florida has the largest concentration<\/a> of these deals.<\/p>\n

The arrests of 2 May 2025. Photograph: Screengrab from video by Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio\/Courtesy of Guatemalan-Maya Center<\/p>\n

Father Frank O\u2019Loughlin, founder and executive director of the Guatemalan-Maya Center, the advocates for Laynez-Ambrosio, says the incident has further eroded trust between Florida\u2019s immigrant community and the police. \u201cThis is a story about the corruption of law enforcement by Maga and the brutality of state and federal troopers \u2013 formerly public servants \u2013 towards nonviolent people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Laynez-Ambrosio is trying to recover from the ordeal, and hopes the footage raises awareness of how immigrants are being treated in the US. \u201cIt didn\u2019t need to go down like that. If they knew that my people were undocumented, they could\u2019ve just kindly taken them out of the car and arrested them,\u201d he said. \u201cIt hurt me bad to see my friends like that. Because they\u2019re just good people, trying to earn an honest living.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the morning of 2 May, Florida teenager Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio was driving to his landscaping job in North…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-291191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}