CBP and ICE agents detained U.S. citizen and Army veteran George Retes for 72 hours without charge during Camarillo raid

On July 10, 2025, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained George Retes, a U.S. citizen and disabled Army veteran working as a security guard, as he arrived for his shift during a federal raid on Glass House Farms, a licensed cannabis facility in Camarillo, California. Retes says he identified himself as a citizen and tried to comply as agents blocked the road, but agents shattered his car window, pepper-sprayed him through the broken glass, pulled him from the vehicle, and knelt on his neck and back while zip-tying his hands, even though his hands were already behind him and he was not resisting.

Agents moved Retes from the farm to Naval Base Ventura County and then to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, where he was held roughly 72 hours without access to an attorney, without a phone call to his family, and without being told what he was accused of. He was not permitted to shower despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, and he missed his three-year-old daughter's birthday while detained. He was released without charge on July 13, 2025.

The Department of Homeland Security later said Retes "became violent," refused to comply with agents, and blocked their route, and that Customs and Border Protection arrested him for assault; DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the arrest and release on the record but declined to say what he had been charged with, and the government never filed any charge. Retes disputed the agency's account, saying he was not violent and had complied with agents' instructions to back up his car.

The detention occurred during a joint operation that day at two Southern California cannabis farms in which federal agents arrested more than 300 people; a legal observer was separately shot with less-lethal rounds and tear-gassed during the same raid, and a farmworker died after falling from a greenhouse roof.

Updates

2026-02-18 — Retes sued the United States and individual federal officers [1, 2, 5]

George Retes filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, represented by the Institute for Justice, bringing Federal Tort Claims Act claims against the United States and Fourth Amendment and California false-imprisonment claims against the individual officers involved in his arrest and detention.