Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a 25-year-old US-born citizen, was detained by ICE in Alabama despite holding a federally issued Real ID. Officers handcuffed him, tossed his ID aside as “fake,” and only released him after he produced his Social Security number—turning the promise of ironclad ID into a surreal bureaucratic obstacle course.

In video footage, ICE agents ignore Venegas’ Real ID and a bystander’s shouts about his citizenship. Officials later claimed he “interfered” in their job site arrest, but the only thing Venegas blocked was logic—leaving him cuffed for nearly 1 hour and his cousin calling the ordeal “absurd.”

ICE officers dismissed Venegas’ Real ID as fake and held him in handcuffs for almost 1 hour—even as he shouted he was a citizen.