He lived an immigrant's nightmare. One problem: He's a citizen, got his arrest on video
- - He lived an immigrant's nightmare. One problem: He's a citizen, got his arrest on video
Valentina Palm, USA TODAY NETWORKJuly 26, 2025 at 12:37 PM
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Florida ‒ Kenny Laynez's cellphone camera captured every undocumented immigrant’s nightmare on video when he was arrested. One problem: He is a U.S. citizen.
The video, shot May 2, showed Florida Highway Patrol officers and Border Patrol agents stopping the 18-year-old landscaper and his three coworkers ‒ one of them his mother ‒ as they drove past luxury buildings 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 shooting 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,” the officer said, referring to his ethnicity. He hurried the 18-year-old into a van.
Laynez was released from a Riviera Beach federal facility six hours later, with the video still on his cellphone.
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.
Kenny Laynez, who was born in West Palm Beach, was detained on May 2, 2025 in Riviera Beach by Florida Highway Patrol deputies and Border Patrol agents before being released after six hours. Two of his coworkers who where undocumented where sent to Chrome in Miami.
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The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Network, recently interviewed Laynez and 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.
Laynez said he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction without violence simply to get the incident over with. He entered a pretrial diversion program on June 4. The state will drop the charges July 30 if he completes the program by then.
"They treated us like dogs they picked up in the street," Layzez said. "They are just pulling over people and kidnapping people who are hard-working."
"We are not criminals. We were just heading to work."
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Videos like Laynez’s showing federal agents arresting day laborers have left immigrant families across Palm Beach County and the rest of the country in fear. Even families in which some members are documented have laid low, sometimes not going to school or church.
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.”
A law-enforcement officer holds Marroquin, a landscaping coworker of Kenny Laynez, by the neck during his arrest on May 2 along State Road A1A in Singer Island. The incident was part of a crackdown on undocumented immigrants in Florida. Laynez, a U.S. citizen who also was arrested, recorded the incident on his cellphone.Stopped while heading to work
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 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.
Although his mother wasn't speeding, just after they crossed the bridge on Singer Island, they heard a police siren. An officer rolled down a tinted window and signaled to her to pull over.
The officer 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. The officer returned and said his mother's license was suspended, to all their surprise.
Laynez said he asked the officer why he pulled them over. He didn't see how the officer could have known his mother’s license was suspended by running the company truck's license plate.
Kenny Laynez records his coworker, Esdras,being shot with a Taser during their arrest on May 2, 2025, along State Road A1A in Singer Island.
Laynez said the officer asked if they were "illegal." Laynez said they were not and asked what that had to do with the license.
A van pulled up and more armed agents swarmed the truck. 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 of the raid
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.
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.
An agent pressed his knee on Laynez’s back and forced him face down to the pavement. An officer later 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.
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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.
A law-enforcement officer takes Kenny Laynez, a U.S. citizen living in West Palm Beach, into custody on May 2, 2025, during his arrest along State Road A1A in Singler Island. The incident was part of a crackdown on undocumented immigrants in Florida. Laynez recorded the incident on his cellphone.
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 recording stopped shortly after that exchange, its memory out of storage.
The agents confirmed Laynez's mother 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.
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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.
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.
The cellphone camera of U.S. citizen Kenny Laynez captured his arrest on May 2, 2025, during a crackdown on undocumented immigrants in Florida. The Florida Highway Patrol and U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Laynez and his coworkers, who were undocumented, on their way to a landscaping job in North Palm Beach.
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 said 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 while signing. "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 that Esdras had resisted his arrest. Laynez is not mentioned.
After six hours, Laynez said he walked out the door of the Riviera Beach building and ordered an Uber home. He had almost 100 missed calls from his mother.
Laynez said the footage of the arrests haunts him, but he doesn't regret filming.
"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."
Email Valentina Palm at [email protected] and follow her on X at @ValenPalmB.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: ICE raids Florida: Citizen lived immigrant nightmare of being arrested
Source: “AOL General News”
