CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) — Court documents show U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is using interstate weigh stations in Iowa to arrest truckers, accusing drivers of being in the United States illegally.Iowa State Patrol is helping in these arrests, according to federal court records.Failing to stop at a weigh station is typically a violation that ends in a ticket, but instead, court documents show, in some cases, Iowa State Patrol troopers are requesting an “immigration inquiry” to have ICE officers check the driver’s legal status.Court filings indicate that’s what happened to Suraj Vasal, who came to the U.S. seeking asylum from India in 2022. On Feb. 11, 2026, Vasal was arrested in Altoona while driving his truck for work when he was pulled over for failing to stop at a weigh station on Interstate 80 in Jasper County.After being cited, the trooper requested an “immigration inquiry.” ICE officers performed a background check and arrested Vasal, accusing him of being “an alien present in the United States who has not been admitted or paroled.”Iowa State Patrol has not responded to requests for more information about these weigh station arrests and what triggers an immigration inquiry during a stop.ICE accused of ‘bad faith’On Feb. 24, 2026, a U.S. district court granted Suraj Vasal’s request for an bond hearing, ordering the hearing to be held within seven days.Federal court filings indicate the bond hearing occurred three days later, but, according to Vasal, he was given 30 minutes’ notice for the hearing and didn’t realize it was a bond hearing until it started. At the hearing, Vasal asked for more time for his legal representation to arrive, but the immigration judge denied the request.In a document filed on March 24, 2026, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher wrote the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, ICE, Polk County Sheriff Kevin Schneider and Polk County Jail Administrator Cory Williams “do not dispute the facts” as Vasal described them, but argued the judge needed to move forward with the case on the 27th because the judge “had a lighter docket on Friday, February 27, 2026, and thus time to hold the hearing,” and didn’t want to miss the seven-day window.Locher wrote their “arguments test the border of bad faith,” and the “impossible” window of time given for Vasal to gather evidence in his defense was a “denial of the basic due process rights afforded to him under the Fifth Amendment.”The U.S. district judge ordered that another bond hearing be held in the next seven days by a different judge, giving Vasal at least 48 hours’ notice.Copyright 2026 KCRG. All rights reserved.