Just before sunrise on a Tuesday in March, A.G., a Valencia College student, got into his car outside his east Orange County apartment to head to his job as a maintenance worker. Before he backed out of his spot, red-and-blue lights flashed behind him, and a man with “police” emblazoned on his vest knocked on his window. A.G., a Venezuelan national, handed over his valid driver’s license, work permit and Social Security card – the documents he thought protected him. Within minutes, he was handcuffed by immigration authorities in the back of an unmarked black SUV headed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Orlando office, setting into motion days of detention across Florida that have threatened to upend the life he’s built since coming to the United States five years ago. Though Florida leads the nation in immigration arrests since President Donald Trump returned to office last year, A.G’s case is unusual in Central Florida, as it involved ICE agents directly making a street-level arrest — and targeting someone who has no criminal record, nor even a speeding ticket. Court records show that A.G., who asked to be identified only by his middle initials as he is now fearful of attracting authorities’ attention, is lawfully in the country, has a pending asylum application, and holds a Florida driver’s license and other documents that allow him to work. He was released on his own recognizance in 2021 after entering the country as he fled political persecution in Venezuela and was granted Temporary Protected Status, a U.S. program that allowed Venezuelans to live and work here without fear of deportation. The Trump administration terminated TPS for Venezuelans last year. “I was telling him I cannot go back to my country because in Venezuela I was protesting against the dictatorship,” A.G. said he told the ICE agent. “I was doing a lot of political activity against [former Venezuelan president] Nicolas Maduro.” The agent was unmoved, said A.G., who speaks English well and is also fluent in his native Spanish. “He was like, ‘You’re a criminal, and you should go back to your country.’” A.G. is studying economics at Valencia. The slightly built 26-year-old also works repairing HVACs and plumbing and doing other maintenance at an apartment complex. The day before he was taken into custody, he was assigned an immigration judge in his asylum case with a court date expected in 2028. That ICE showed up at his apartment the next day makes him fearful the agency is eager to deport him before he can plead his case in court. Josephine Arroyo, an attorney whose firm filed a habeas corpus petition to get A.G. freed from detention, said the case was the firm’s first of more than two-dozen such petitions that didn’t stem from a traffic stop. Most Florida immigration arrests have been initiated by state and local authorities, deputized to carry out limited immigration duties. Often these are traffic stops for normally minor offenses like speeding, driving with a busted taillight or driving without a license. Those lead to police discovering the immigrant’s ICE warrant, and they then book the person into jail, jump-starting the path to deportation. A.G.’s case is different. “They were at his apartment complex; they knew where he lived,” she said. “I have not seen that happen yet, where they actually go to somebody’s apartment and they’re staking him out there.” Ericka Gomez-Tejeda, the director of community organizing at Hope CommUnity Center, which works with immigrants, said the case was also the first they were aware of ICE making a street-level arrest in Central Florida. Such tactics have been more common in Democratic-led states such as California, Illinois, Oregon and Minnesota where there have been ICE “surges” independent of local law enforcement. “This has been our biggest fear — that they’re going to go for the lowest hanging fruit of folks who are vulnerable,” she said. The ICE agent drove A.G. to the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations office on Delegates Drive in south Orlando, where they replaced his handcuffs with shackles. He was interviewed and quizzed on his own history, as well as his family’s and his girlfriend’s. They asked him about the worst crime he’d seen committed since he’d been in the U.S., and how the notorious Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua operated, which puzzled him since he’s never had any connection. They had him remove his clothes to check for tattoos that they could trace to gang lineage. He said he was in shock as he sat in a room with other detainees for most of the day. “I have my work permit, I have my social security number, I pay my taxes, I go to college, I work, I don’t have a criminal record. I’ve never been pulled over, because I drive like an old man,” he said. “I was doing everything right.” But after several hours, a Department of Homeland Security investigator told him he was being detained and sent to the Krome North Service Processing Center immigration facility in Miami-Dade County. He arrived around midnight. There, he said, he was placed in a pod of 58 detainees in what was classified as a high-security area, with people accused of violent felonies or drug dealing. He requested to be moved to a lower-security section, but that did not happen. Guards advised him to keep a low profile. “I was with people that had (charges of) battery with deadly weapon, grand theft, domestic violence, cocaine,” he said. “I told them many times, ‘I’m a college student, why do I have to be here?’” He said the lights were always on, bedtime was 11 p.m. and guards were shouting to wake them up at 6 a.m. He was scared of being attacked at night and called his girlfriend, V.S., several times daily. She is a U.S. citizen and said she was tasked with coordinating his affairs, trying to pay their rent and car payments as he missed work — while also worrying about A.G.’s wellbeing. She also asked to be identified only by her initials to help protect A.G. “If we tried to coordinate for him to call me at 3:00 or at 6:00 — and if he wouldn’t call me then — I’m like, my God, did something happen?” she said. “You just don’t know.” The day of his arrest, an emergency habeas corpus petition was filed by The Arroyo Law Firm in federal court in Orlando. It contended his detainment violated the Fourth, Fifth and 14th Amendments and that he should be released. The firm has secured the release of more than two dozen people detained using similar arguments. Six days later, Judge Paul Byron ordered A.G..’s release without a hearing. A.G. learned of his release hours later. That day, he was freed from the Miami-Dade facility to find his way back to Central Florida. V.S. ordered him an Uber to the Brightline Station, and he took a train back north. Immigration authorities held onto all of his documents — a frustration shared by numerous detainees and their attorneys in recent months — including his driver’s license and work permit. Now, he needs a ride to and from work and class. Attorneys filed a motion to get them back, but so far, he doesn’t have them. The saga has left him shaken, even as he’s returned to work. He’s found himself in tears and had a panic attack. At night, he wakes up every hour, fearful of being attacked, he said. “I feel so heartbroken because I love this country,” he said. “I came to the US seeking freedom. In my country, you get killed because you think differently. Or you go to jail for 15 years because you’re a domestic terrorist — that’s what they call you.” “In my country, they were looking for me because of my political beliefs, and now in the U.S., they’re looking for me because of my status. And there’s nothing wrong with my status.”