Teen Says ICE Agents Choked Him, Mocked Him as “Gay”
Teen tells Congress ICE agents used a chokehold, hurled slurs, and seized his phone during his father’s arrest.
A 16-year-old boy testified at a congressional hearing that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents choked him and called him “gay” for crying while they arrested his father
Arnoldo Bazán, a U.S. citizen from Houston, testified at a bicameral forum convened by Democratic U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) examining alleged escalation of violence by ICE agents and agency policies that Democrats say disregard constitutional rights and harm children.
Bazán was one of several teenagers who testified at the forum, which also highlighted cases of U.S. citizens separated from their children after being mistaken for undocumented immigrants.
As ProPublica reported last October, more than 170 U.S. citizens have been wrongly arrested or detained by ICE as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Scrutiny has intensified following the recent shootings of queer mother Renee Good and ICU nurse Alexa Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minnesota.
In written testimony, Bazán said that on October 23, 2025, his father, an immigrant from Mexico, was driving him to school after stopping at McDonald’s to celebrate making the varsity soccer team. A car with tinted windows flashed its lights, prompting his father to pull over. Multiple unmarked vehicles then approached, and armed, masked men jumped out and began banging on the car’s windows.
Bazán began recording the encounter on his phone, and his father drove off because neither of them knew the masked men — who did not identify themselves — were government agents.
“One of the unmarked cars rammed into our car multiple times,” he said. “I even felt our car lift. My dad stopped at a store and ran inside to find help. I saw men grab my dad and start attacking him. As a son, I could not just sit there. So I ran inside and screamed for these men to get off my dad.”
Bazán said ICE officers grabbed him and ripped his shirt, with one officer placing him in a chokehold and telling him, “You’re done.”
“His grip was so tight that I wondered if I would make it out alive. With all of my strength, I screamed that I was underage and from the United States,” Bazán testified. “When the officer finally stopped, I began telling everyone who could hear me that these officers had tried to flip our car and that I had proof on my phone. The same officer who choked me then took my phone.
“The officers put me and my dad in a car. They mocked us. They told me I was ‘gay for crying’ ‘an illegal idiot,’ a ‘border hopper,’ and other demeaning words. These officers even celebrated that they caught two people and that their bonus would be good,” he continued. “After they took a picture of me, they tried to be friendly. But when that didn’t work, the same officer who put me in a chokehold threatened me. He told me my dad will pay the consequences if I press charges.”
Bazán’s sister took him to Texas Children’s Hospital, where he was admitted to the trauma unit and given morphine while doctors examined his neck and spine and warned that his blood pressure was abnormally high. Recordings of a 911 call obtained by MS NOW show that a nurse reported to Houston police that Bazán had been “choked” and “beaten.”
The injury to Bazán’s neck lasted three weeks and damaged his Adam’s apple. “I couldn’t drink water. I just felt like it went down the wrong hole every time. And my back, I couldn’t move,” he told MS NOW.
Bazán testified that his phone was never returned after agents arrested and detained his father. After being released from the hospital, he used the Find My app to locate his iPhone — containing video of the encounter — two miles from where his father was detained, at a kiosk that buys used electronics for cash, where it had been sold. When he complained to local police, they told him they “can’t do anything” to federal officers.
Police in nearby Conroe, Texas, recovered Bazán’s phone and told his family it had been exchanged for about $250 in cash. A Conroe police report describes the theft as a “second-degree felony” and says investigators will share information obtained from the ecoATM company with Houston police.
Bazán also testified that ICE agents threatened his father, telling him they would send his son to juvenile and federal prison unless he signed papers agreeing to “self-deport” to Mexico.
Responding to questions from Garcia, Bazán confirmed the agents never identified themselves and that he told them he was a U.S. citizen. Garcia also challenged claims by the Department of Homeland Security — of which ICE is a part — that Bazán’s father rammed an agent’s vehicle, noting that video taken by the teenager shows ICE agents rammed his father’s van four times.
Garcia displayed photos of Bazán in the hospital and his injuries, asking the teenager to confirm that ICE agents called him “gay” and used derogatory and racist terms.
Bazán testified that he is still affected by the encounter.
“When I go to school, I pray I come home safely,” he said. “Whenever I hear sirens or see an officer, my heart starts racing. I don’t even know when I will see my father again. I’m sharing my story so that this doesn’t happen to other people. This is not the America that I know.”
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