I never post on my Facebook page, but I routinely check it out because a lifetime of living in leftist enclaves means that many of my old friends give me a good insight into what ordinary Democrats—that is, not Democrats in the media—are thinking. Today, what many of them are thinking is that ICE, acting on its racist, totalitarian instincts, arrested and detained a disabled military veteran and American citizen because he looked Hispanic. As always, though, the real story may be different because it’s possible that the same man interfered with an ongoing ICE operation, which is a federal offense.
The Military Times, which it would surprise many to know is a surprisingly left-wing outlet, reprinted the AP’s report on the Retes story:
A U.S. Army veteran who was arrested during an immigration raid at a Southern California marijuana farm last week said Wednesday he was sprayed with tear gas and pepper spray before being dragged from his vehicle and pinned down by federal agents who arrested him.
George Retes, 25, who works as a security guard at Glass House Farms in Camarillo, said he was arriving at work on July 10 when several federal agents surrounded his car and — despite him identifying himself as a U.S. citizen — broke his window, peppered sprayed him and dragged him out.
Wow! That’s awful. An American citizen. A U.S. Army veteran. Grabbed from his car. Held for three days without even being allowed a shower or a change of clothes. He was even “put in a special cell on suicide watch and checked on each day after he became emotionally distraught over his ordeal and missing his 3-year-old daughter’s birthday party Saturday.” (I don’t know about you, but that’s a surprising emotional collapse for someone who was trained as a combat veteran, but what do I know?)
Democrats have taken the report and run with it:
ICE doesn’t get to “accidentally” detain a U.S. citizen. George Retes served this country. Now he’s missing after a violent, illegal arrest. This is how the “veteran loving president” treats veterans! Outrageous!!!!! pic.twitter.com/GJSzWMbIFj
— Areva Martin, Esq. (@ArevaMartin) July 11, 2025
US Army Veteran George Retes plans on suing the Trump regime. He was arrested and detained for 3 days until being released with no charges. Even though he had pepper spray on his body, Retes said he wasn’t given any medical attention. He also said, despite being a US citizen, he… pic.twitter.com/GACh5xCZBM
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) July 18, 2025
I don’t want to hear that ICE isn’t racially profiling people or detaining U.S. citizens. There’s absolutely no reason George Retes, an honorable veteran who served this country, should have been detained and mistreated for three days.
— ???????????? (@Tops_opinion) July 15, 2025
This isn’t why we served this country, and… https://t.co/7TqHyN0Dql
Here’s a long Spanish language news report, not a word of which I understand, that reports on Retes’s arrest. I want you to pay attention to it because it shows clearly what Retes looked like on that day and what his car looked like:
????????????El 10 de julio, George Retes intentó negociar con agentes de ICE para pasar a su trabajo en Glass House Farm; terminó detenido por varios días.
— Noticias EstrellaTV (@NEstrellaTv) July 18, 2025
Retes, veterano del ejército estadounidense, sostiene que demandará al gobierno por el trato que le ha dado a los indocumentados. pic.twitter.com/GtlOxsRwwF
As you can see, Retes is a slender, dark-haired man wearing a gray hoodie and black shorts. He’s standing next to a white station wagon and gesticulating while talking to the ICE agents carrying out the raid. Without their stopping him, he gets into his car and backs up. And then, the video stops.
Clearly, after that point, something happened that caused the ICE agents to believe it appropriate to stop Retes’s car, break the window, spray him with chemicals, and arrest him. That particular video does not provide the answer.
However, there is another video that may provide more information. In the video below, which is the only one I could find that doesn’t show the preferred Democrat narrative, ICE agents ordered a man who looks like Retes (young, slender, dark hair), is dressed like Retes (gray hoodie, black shorts), and is driving a car like Retes’s (white station wagon) to move and “go home,” at which point the man says, “Make me.”
George Retes wants to sue. Why would anyone park between a crowd and a wall of officers? The officer requested, "You should go home." To which he replied - "Make me." FAFO? @DHSgov @ICEgov @AGPamBondi https://t.co/HylmKFVwp6 pic.twitter.com/iaE018Yo08
— Auraya Gold (@Auraya24K) July 17, 2025
In other words, it’s entirely possible, if the man in that video is Retes (and I am not saying it is because I do not know that for a fact), that ICE subsequently took Retes up on his challenge to “make” him move.
As it happens, 18 U.S. Code §111 makes it a felony to interfere with federal law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties, as these men manifestly were. If the U.S. government can make the case that Retes interfered with ICE agents as they were carrying out their duties, Retes, rather than going home with a payout from the federal government, may find himself incarcerated at a federal prison for up to a year.
Again, I’m not saying that Retes did anything wrong. I am saying, though, that our media routinely and uncritically accept anything they’re told if it aligns with their narrative that the Trump administration is evil.
For that reason, whenever you see that the news and your social media feeds are flooded with a too-perfect Democrat narrative, take a few minutes to investigate whether there might be more to the narrative than meets the eye. In this case, I’ll be interested to see if that one little video snippet is indeed a counter to the dominant leftist narrative. Or maybe the federal government truly made a hash of things and, in George Retes, the Democrats finally found a picture-perfect victim of the Trump administration’s policies.
Image created using ChatGPT.