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ICE agents stopped and arrested Darwin Garcia Medrano and his 16-year-old brother at a gas station in Brentwood, New York

On January 17, 2026, ICE agents stopped Darwin Garcia Medrano and his 16-year-old brother at a gas station in Brentwood, New York, arresting both without a judicial warrant. Darwin, who had a pending Special Immigrant Juvenile status application, was detained for five days. His arrest is one of eight named in the April 2026 class-action lawsuit Benitez v. DHS, which alleges ICE and CBP agents have conducted a systematic pattern of warrantless stops and arrests of Latino residents across New York based on race and ethnicity.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Brentwood, New York

Abuses documented

Actors

On January 17, 2026, ICE agents stopped Darwin Garcia Medrano and his 16-year-old brother at a gas station in Brentwood, New York, arresting both without a judicial warrant. Darwin had a pending Special Immigrant Juvenile status application at the time of his arrest. He was detained for five days before being released.

His arrest is one of eight documented stops described in the complaint filed April 8, 2026, in the class action Benitez v. DHS, brought by Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road New York, and Covington & Burling LLP. The suit alleges that ICE and CBP agents have carried out a systematic pattern of warrantless stops and arrests of Latino residents across New York City and Long Island, relying on apparent race and ethnicity as the basis for stops in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

Updates

2026-04-08 — Benitez v. DHS filed in EDNY naming this arrest among eight documented instances [1, 2]

Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road New York, and Covington & Burling LLP filed the class action Benitez v. DHS (2:26-cv-02082) in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The complaint documented this arrest alongside seven others as evidence of a systematic pattern of warrantless ICE and CBP stops and arrests targeting Latino residents across New York City and Long Island based on race and ethnicity.

Why we recorded this

ICE agents stopped Darwin Garcia Medrano at a gas station and also arrested his 16-year-old brother, with no articulable criminal suspicion documented, detaining Darwin for five days despite his pending Special Immigrant Juvenile status application. The arrest of a minor alongside an adult in the absence of any documented criminal predicate, and the detention of an SIJ applicant, each represent documented federal abuses of enforcement authority. This entry records both.

Sources

  1. Legal Aid, NYCLU, Make the Road NY, and Covington & Burling LLP File Class Action Lawsuit Against DHS for Unlawful Stops, Warrantless Immigration Arrests, and Racial Profiling of New Yorkers — Legal Aid Society / NYCLU primary accessed July 26, 2026
  2. New Lawsuit Accuses ICE of Racially Profiling New Yorkers During Immigration Arrests — The City investigative accessed July 26, 2026

See also