‘WE ARE NOT

CRIMINALS’

Citizen lived and recorded every immigrant’s nightmare

Valentina Palm

Palm Beach Post USA TODAY NETWORK

Kenny Laynez’s cellphone camera captured every undocumented immigrant’s nightmare on video when it happened to him on the morning of May 2. One problem: He is a U.S. citizen.

The video showed Florida Highway Patrol officers and Border Patrol agents stopping the 18-yearold landscaper and his three coworkers — one of them his mother — as they drove by luxury buildings in Singer Island to a job.

The camera captured officers dragging his coworkers out of their van by their necks and twisting Laynez’s arms and pushing him face down to the pavement.

The video also recorded an officer shoot one of

Laynez’s coworkers with a Taser, saying he had resisted arrest.

“I have rights. I was born and raised here,” Laynez told the officers, according to a copy of the video shared by the Guatemalan- Maya Center of Lake Worth Beach.

“You don’t have any rights here. You are a ‘Migo,’ brother,” said the officer, who hurried him into a van. “Migo” is short for “amigo,” the Spanish word for “friend” and here a reference to Laynez’s ethnicity.

Laynez won his release from a Riviera Beach federal facility six hours later, with the video still on his cellphone because he said he refused to give the device to an officer.

His coworkers, including the one who was tased, were undocumented and weren’t as fortunate. They were transferred to the Krome Detention Center in Miami. Laynez said they are free on bail but fear they will be arrested if they show up in court.

Their arrests are part of President Donald Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown, enforced by the 287(g) agreements Gov. Ron DeSantis made all Florida police agencies sign, deputizing their officers as federal agents.

As such law-enforcement officers not only police communities but also apprehend people they suspect of being undocumented.

The detentions came on the heels of Operation Tidal Wave, which rolled up arrests across Florida in March and April. It was driven by Trump’s orders demanding the expedited removal of undocumented people from the U.S. in what he has promised will be the largest mass deportation in American history.

For years, unauthorized entry to the U.S. was considered a misdemeanor. However, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said in April that ICE now considers anyone without documentation to be a felon.

The Palm Beach Post made multiple attempts to contact FHP, ICE and Border Patrol for comment about the incident and the body-camera footage, as well as multiple requests for copies of the arrest reports. None of them responded.

“They treated us like dogs they picked up in the street,” said Laynez, who said he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction without violence simply to get the incident over with. “They are just pulling over people and kidnapping people who are hardworking.”

“We are not criminals. We were just heading to work.”

Trump-ordered ICE arrests spread fear among Palm Beach County immigrants

Videos like Laynez’s showing federal agents arresting day laborers have left immigrant families across Palm Beach County in fear. Even families in which some members are documented have laid low, sometimes not going to school or church.

One Facebook group based in Jupiter has said it received several videos each week showing authorities detaining people during Operation Tidal Wave, and that the fear of arrest has persisted after that prolonged sweep in April.

Many of those arrested are undocumented, having fled to the U.S. from political turmoil in the Caribbean and South and Central America, attorneys and advocates for immigrants have said. The majority did manual labor such as landscaping, cleaning and construction. Some were at or on their way to work when officers arrested them.

West Palm Beach attorney Jack Scarola has reviewed Laynez’s footage and has talked with him about the incident.

He said the footage shows how FHP and Border Patrol agents are under “extreme pressure” to meet daily arrest and deportation quotas and that the response has led to a “reckless disregard” of the rights of both undocumented and legal immigrants and even the rights of U.S. citizens.

“All of us should be not only offended, but outraged by that misconduct,” Scarola said. “And if we fail to appropriately respond to that outrageous disregard of the civil rights of others, all of our civil rights are in serious jeopardy.”

Immigration raid happened while workers were driving to Lost Tree Village near North Palm Beach

Kenny Laynez was born in 2005 at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach to a Guatemalan single mother who is in the U.S. legally but is not a citizen. He attended Palm Beach Lakes High School and got a job at the landscaping company where his mother drove crews to work sites. Neither Laynez nor his mother works for the company any longer.

Laynez said he and his mother met two coworkers on May 2 at a gas station and drove to a landscaping job at Lost Tree Village, off U.S. 1 near North Palm Beach. The coworkers, Esdras and Marroquin, are undocumented but neither had criminal records, Laynez said. The Post is withholding their last names to protect their families.

After they drove beyond the Blue Heron Boulevard bridge at about 9 a.m., Laynez said he spotted two vehicles that had pulled over a landscaping truck like the one in which they were riding.

Laynez said he checked the dashboard. His mother was driving below the speed limit. They should be fine, he thought.

He was wrong. He said two cars tailed the truck and then passed it. Laynez sighed in relief. Then he heard police sirens. An officer rolled down a tinted window and signaled to pull over.

Laynez said his friends looked terrified. Laynez told them they didn’t need to worry. They weren’t driving, they didn’t have criminal records and they had a right not to disclose their immigration status. Laynez said he learned that at a “know your rights” class for immigrants.

The officer walked to Laynez’s window, away from the passing cars, and asked where they were headed. Laynez said they were going to work and the officer took his mother’s license and the truck’s registration and insurance.

Laynez said he played TikTok videos on his phone to lighten the mood. Then it darkened quickly: The officer returned and said his mother’s license was suspended, to all their surprise. He added that the group looked packed in the truck.

Laynez said he asked the officer why he pulled them over. He sensed something was off. He didn’t see how the officer could have known his mother’s license was suspended by running the company truck’s license plate.

Laynez said the officer asked if they were “illegal.” Laynez said they were not and asked what that had to do with the license.

The officers asked for their identification. Laynez said he told them they had left them in their cars at their meet-up location and that they weren’t obligated to turn them over because they weren’t driving.

The officers ordered them to write down their names and dates of birth on a piece of paper. After hesitating, they did. Laynez began to worry.

Laynez said the officer told them not to call for any of their family members to pick them up. He said that as the officer

spoke, a van pulled up and more armed agents swarmed the truck.

Laynez said a female officer approached his window and ordered them in Spanish to shut off their phones.

Laynez said that at that moment, he started recording with his phone instead: “I assumed something was going to happen.”

The video tells all: The day the landscaping van was raided

What he captured on video begins with a question.

“Who in here is illegal?” The officer asked in Spanish. “Whoever takes longer to answer will get more charges and spend more time in jail.”

Esdras, who is seen clenching a towel in his hands, raised his hand.

‘Yo,” he said. His voice quivered, ” yo estoy aquí ilegalmente” — “I am here illegally.”

The male agent ordered them to open the door. Laynez grabbed onto the handle.

“Wait, hold up,” Laynez said. “You don’t have the right to do that.”

“I don’t have a right?” the officer said with a laugh. He reached inside the car and popped the door open.

The video shows an agent grabbing Marroquin by the hair and placing his neck in the crook of his arm. Another agent pulled Esdras, called Kevin by his coworkers, by the leg and tightened his hands around his neck.

The video then shows Laynez stepping out of the car, but an officer who had ordered him to get on the ground pushes him from behind, twisting his arms and kneeling him to the pavement. Esdras stood rigidly as three officers tried to force him to the ground. They told him in English to lie down, while Laynez urged him in Spanish not to resist.

“Aye! What are you doing? That is not how you arrest people,” Laynez said.

The video shows an officer pulling out a yellow Taser and firing twice into Esdras’ stomach. Laynez saw his body and legs spasm before he slammed onto the pavement, crying.

“I felt like my heart broke,” Laynez said in an interview. “I was sad. I was mad. I wish I could have done something.”

An agent pressed his knee on Laynez’s back and forced him face down to the pavement. Laynez said Marroquin, the other coworker, was still being held around his neck but his phone didn’t capture it.

An officer ordered Laynez to stand up, but he said he was too scared to move.

“I am not going to get up because you are going to do to me whatever you were doing to Esdras,” Laynez said. “That is not how you arrest people.”

“Be quiet,” an officer said, cutting him off and picking him up.

“I’ve got the right to talk,” Laynez said. “I was born and raised here.”

“You have no rights here. You are a “Migo,” brother,” the officer said in a comment Laynez said sounded like racial profiling.

Laynez’s mother can be heard crying in the background.

“What about her?” the agent asked as Laynez went to the van with his coworkers.

“Ay Santo Dios,” she cried as she made a phone call. “‘Se los llevaron. Y se llevaron a mi Kenny’.” Oh, holy God. They took them. And they took my Kenny.

Video records officers laughing at immigration arrest

Laynez’s phone continued recording on the sidewalk and captured a conversation between the agents over the next four minutes.

“Once she got the proper spread on him, he was done,” the officer said. “You’re funny, bro.”

“It was funny,” an agent said, laughing. “It was,” another chimed in with laughter.

Another agent said more people are resisting their immigration arrests.

“They are starting to resist now,” an agent said. “We’re going to end up shooting someone.”

On the video, an agent recounted how Laynez said they didn’t have the right to come in the door and says: “I already told you to come out. If you don’t come out, I’ll pull you out.”

“God damn. Wow,” the officer cheered. “Nice!”

“Just remember you can smell too with a $30,000 bonus,” another officer chimes in. It was not immediately clear to what bonus the officer referred.

On the tape, an officer is heard saying that Laynez’s coworker was resisting arrest, so he should be charged.

“He was being a d*** right now. That is why we tased,” an agent said.

The phone stopped shortly after that exchange as its memory ran out of storage. The officers who drove the three men to the Riviera Beach center collected it, along with their other belongings.

The agents confirmed Laynez’s mom had legal status and issued her a ticket for driving with a suspended license. Laynez said she told them he was a U.S. citizen and showed them a picture of his Social Security card. They still took Laynez into custody.

Laynez said that before leaving, the officers held his mother’s driver’s license to her face and tore it in half.

U.S. citizen spent six hours in detention facility: What he saw

Once at the Riviera Beach facility, Laynez said he saw rows of men. Most spoke Spanish and wore construction clothes like his own. Two looked like they were his age, 17 or 18.

Laynez said he appeared to be the only one inside the packed room who spoke English. He said the men told them they had been detained for hours without water or food. Laynez wanted to use the bathroom, but the only toilet available was out in the open, without any doors or covers.

Laynez said he grew anxious and mad. He said he wondered whether it really mattered whether he was a U.S. citizen.

After almost four hours, the female officer who detained them took Laynez to a room and asked for his date of birth three times, even though he had already written it down for another officer. Finally, she came out with a ziplocked bag with his phone, wallet and headphones.

In Spanish, she asked him to unlock it. Laynez said she told him she needed to see if he had filmed videos of the arrest.

Laynez said he unlocked his phone, closed all his apps and locked it again. He said he declined to open it and set it down on the table.

He said she told him they would wait in that room until he opened it. She asked again for his date of birth. Laynez said he trembled. That was his password.

Laynez said the officer threatened to press charges if he didn’t unlock his phone, but then a person who appeared to be a supervisor interrupted them. Laynez said the supervisor told the officer that Laynez wasn’t supposed to be in that room because he is a U.S. citizen.

The supervisor took Laynez’s fingerprints and said it was only to leave a record that he had been in the facility. Then he told Laynez he couldn’t leave without signing some paperwork and that he would have to show up in court.

“What did I do?” Laynez said he asked. “I didn’t do anything. Why do I have to present myself in court?”

The arrest report said Laynez was being charged with nonviolent police obstruction. In a copy of the report that Laynez provided to The Palm Beach Post, officers wrote Esdras had resisted his arrest, but Laynez is not mentioned. Federal officials did not respond to a request for an independent copy of the report.

After six hours, Laynez said he walked out the door of the Riviera Beach building and ordered an Uber home. He had almost a hundred missed calls from his mother.

“I had never had something escalate like that with police officers,” said Laynez, who has watched the video hundreds of times. “There are a lot of videos of how people get detained, and I never thought it would happen like that over here in Palm Beach County.”

Laynez said the footage haunts him, but he doesn’t regret filming the video.

“I would basically have nothing, no evidence,” Laynez said. “And no one would believe what happened or how they escalated the situation.

“There might be even more happening that is not being recorded.”