ICE Now Has Sections for U.S. Citizens at Detention Sites

On a Sunday afternoon in Minneapolis, Patty O’Keefe and Brandon Siguenza, both U.S. citizens who live there, were taking part in an ICE watch. This is a legal activity where people observe and record law enforcement actions in public. It is an activity long protected by the First Amendment. That afternoon ended with them in cuffs after agents moved on them without warning.

The agents who moved on them didn’t knock or even shout orders. The first agent to reach Patty’s side jams a canister nozzle against the air intake vents near the windshield wipers. Inside the car, the air instantly turns caustic. A high-dose stream of pepper spray flooded directly into the sealed cabin, weaponizing the car’s own ventilation system.

This is a tactic that mirrors the times that DHS agents have used pepper spray on the air intake valves of inflatable costumes worn during protests.

The chemical cloud clawed at their lungs, their skin, their ability to think. If either of them had asthma, COPD, or even mild respiratory illness, this wouldn’t just be assault… it could’ve been a death sentence. They would’ve been the third and fourth victims of DHS — who already executed Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota and Keith Porter in LA — in the last 2 weeks.

The inside of Patty O’Keefes car after ICE attacked her for watching them.

An agent swings a tactical baton, shattering the driver’s side window. Safety glass exploded inward, showering Patty in thousands of glittering, brutal pebbles that mix with the snow on her lap. The cold air rushed in, followed instantly by armored hands.

There is no preamble. No “step out of the vehicle.” No attempts to even check an ID. They do not care if you are a citizen or not.

Hands opened the doors and grab Patty before she can even orient herself. On the other side, the passenger door was wrenched open. Brandon was hauled out by his jacket, stumbling, still suffocating from the gas. He tried to find his footing on the ice, blinking furiously against the burn to see what is happening. Before they can catch their breath, they are arrested and taken in separate unmarked SUVs.

As Patty sat there, blinded and gasping for air, the agents didn’t offer medical aid. They mocked her appearance, followed by a message. They invoked the name of Renee Good and used her body as a warning.

“That’s why that bitch is dead,” they told her.

It was a statement of intent. They weren’t just justifying a murder; they were promising a sequel. They wanted Patty to know that the distance between a jail cell and a grave is much shorter than she thinks.

They did all of this simply because Patty and Brandon were watching, they were documenting, and they were witnesses. They want people to be afraid to show up and hold them accountable for the things they are doing.

In July 2025, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that “Violence is anything that threatens them and their safety, so it is doxing them, it’s videotaping them where they’re at when they’re out on operations.” This isn’t true. No matter how much they try to convince you it is. Filming enforcement is a constitutionally protected right.

If they have nothing to be ashamed of, why are they so afraid of being seen? Why attack the watchmen? Why cover your faces? Be proud of what you’re doing. Show the world who you really are.

The debate over whether DHS is at war with its own citizens is over. We know that the DHS has turned “immigration enforcement” into a Gestapo-esque secret police force.

The only question left is: how much worse is it going to get? And what are we going to do about it?

WHAT THEY EXPERIENCED INSIDE

Patty and Brandon were then abducted by ICE agents and taken to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building. They state they were put in adjacent cells reserved for U.S. citizens, one for men and the other for women.

This is the facility ICE is using to hold all of the people they’ve rounded up in Minneapolis. It was only a few days ago that they turned away three sitting members of Congress from conducting an oversight visit here.

So, it is clear that this is not a detention center, it is a black site. This black-site nonsense is a tactic ICE has been utilizing for years going back to the first Trump administration in 2016.

Patty O’Keefe, 2026

If Congress can’t oversee the enforcement of the laws they wrote, then the laws don't matter. And if the laws don't matter, then Patty and Brandon aren't citizens, and they don't have rights. They have luck, and luck is not a form of governance nor a constitutional right.

On their way to their ‘U.S. Citizen’ cells, they were given a first-hand tour of the cruelty. Patty recalls seeing three male agents watch as one female detainee was trying to use the toilet. They didn't turn around, or just leave the cell. They stood there. They don't need to touch her to violate her.

Humiliation is not just emotionally painful. It is recognized in international human rights law as a form of psychological torture when used deliberately to degrade, punish, or control. Being forced to use the toilet in front of guards, as described in recent ICE detention reports, is a textbook example. Studies show that severe humiliation activates the same parts of the brain as physical pain and is closely linked to PTSD, depression, and long-term trauma.

These aren’t isolated abuses… they are systemic tools of control. And they leave people so broken, so stripped of personhood, that many stop speaking, stop screaming, and stop believing anyone is coming to help.

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The two reported hearing other detainees who were screaming and wailing for help, though most were staring at the ground. Broken.

“Just hearing the visceral pain of the people in this center was awful,” Patty O’Keefe recalled. “And then you juxtapose that with the laughter we heard from the actual agents. ... It was very surreal and kind of shocking.”

Patty O’Keefe sat in a holding cell. She was not permitted a phone call, but at some point she reports that she was allowed to talk to a lawyer.

Brandon Siguenza and his wife, who was not present at the scene (Source)

Brandon Siguenza was granted the one thing Patty was denied… a dial tone. He called his wife. He didn’t waste time on details. He just needed her to know he was alive and he was in immigration custody.

Because he knew the math. He knew that in this world, where U.S. citizens are getting shot in the face for the simple act of witnessing, holding the police accountable is no longer a civic duty, but a daily wager with your own life and today, he had managed to walk away alive.

But for Brandon, the phone call was just the start. He had no idea what was going to come next.

Soon after they moved him to a second room and put a deal on the table that was as cynical as it was racist. They looked at the name “Siguenza,” checked a box in their heads, and assumed he had family on the wrong side of the border. The offer? Cash or protection papers for his “undocumented relatives” in exchange for a contact list.

They wanted the names of organizers. They wanted the names of neighbors. They were trying to bribe him with safety for family members that didn’t exist, assuming that because he is Hispanic, his loyalty to the law was negotiable.

But the racism is just the start. Understand what they were actually asking him to do. They weren’t asking for help solving a crime. They were asking for inventory.

It was the logic of a mob boss: “Nice family you got here. Be a shame if something happened to them. Give us a name, and we’ll make sure they stay safe.”

They tried to make him complicit in the destruction of his own community. They tried to turn a citizen into a predator, using the safety of his (imaginary) family and fellow activists as the currency.

To make matters worse upon release, Siguenza reported that he was escorted into an area where tear gas was deployed, and he was struck repeatedly by paintball rounds. Punishment for not playing their little games.

I want to reflect back on the fact they put them in a separate holding cell reserved for U.S. citizens. That cell proves they know exactly what they are doing. They know they are capturing people who have the right to leave. And the most terrifying part of that sentence isn’t the “capture.”

To DHS, citizens possess a very dangerous weapon. They have a return ticket. They get to walk out the front door at the end of the day. At least for now.

The others don’t have a ticket. The others are in a black hole.

This is terrifying knowing that ICE has killed before. They are killing now. 32 people (that we know of) have died in ICE custody in the last year. 2025 was the deadliest year for ICE detainees in over two decades. They separate the citizens because they need the witnesses to leave before the body bags come out. The citizens are there to be scared straight. The immigrants? They’re there to be erased. That’s exactly why thousands of men who disappeared from the concentration camp Alligator Alcatraz have still yet to be accounted for.

If they treat the citizens — the people with passports, the people with lawyers, the people with Senators on speed dial — if they treat them like animals, denying them water, ignoring their injuries... then what in God’s name are they doing to the people who have no one coming for them?

What happened to Renee, what happened to Patty and Brandon, it is just the start. There are over 2,000 DHS agents and counting in Minnesota right now. They keep sending more. They used the Somali daycare fraud lie paraded by Nick Shirley (a TPUSA linked influencer) as justification to put agents on the ground to ‘fight fraud.’

The result? Death. Destruction. Chaos. People who will never see their loved ones again because of a small man with a large ego feeling emasculated.

On New Year’s Eve, an off-duty DHS agent shot and killed Keith Porter. One week ago they executed Renee in broad daylight and the Trump-loyal FBI blocked local investigators from investigating the case. The same day they attacked a high school and tormented students. Now schools are offering kids to stay home and study remotely so they won’t be exposed to violence and tear gas.

Shortly after, they dragged a disabled woman out of her car.

Last night they shot someone else (this time in their leg) and put six children in the hospital. The kids were in a car with their Dad who was trying to get them out of the neighborhood. ICE threw a flash bang at the car leaving 6 children injured, one of whom was less than a year old. DHS said the parents were radical agitators. But we’ve seen time and time again how they lie and lie. Just like they did when they killed Renee. Just like they did when they killed Silverio outside of his child’s daycare in Chicago. Said he tried to run them over with his car (just like Renee) but video footage cleared his name just like it did hers.

Minnesota is fighting back. Thousands have flooded the streets. And we need to do the same.

Congress is not going to save us. You cannot vote your way out of this. We are way past that. Stop looking for leaders in high places and start looking at the person standing next to you. It’s on me. It’s on us.

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