Columbia Heights resident, U.S. citizen detained for accent

Ramon Menera, a Columbia Heights resident and U.S. citizen, said he was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents Jan. 14 after an agent told him his accent led officers to question where he was born, adding to a growing list of encounters that have been dubbed “Kavanaugh stops.”

Menera said in an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune the encounter began when he returned home with his daughter after getting ice cream and found federal immigration officers blocking his driveway while detaining another man.

When he asked agents to move their vehicle, Menera said they pointed guns at him. He then pulled his car around to the front of the house and later came outside to record from his property.

A Border Patrol agent approached Menera and asked where he was born, according to videos of the encounter. Other people can be heard yelling at agents in the background.

“Now, talking to you, hearing that you have an accent, I have reason to believe you are not born of this country,” the agent said in the video.

Menera told the agent he was on private property and was not required to carry identification. U.S. citizens are not required to carry proof of citizenship, though some have started to out of an abundance of caution.

In the same video, Menera questions the agent’s reasoning and notes the agent also seemed to have an accent. Menera was then handcuffed, and a separate agent stepped in front of a bystander recording the interaction.

Menera said his daughter witnessed part of the interaction from inside their home and is now fearful of spending extended time outside. He said she recently closed all the blinds when they returned home.

“They shouldn’t be just asking for your ID because you have brown skin or because you have an accent,” Menera said. “That’s not me trying to give them a hard time, but trying to let them know that what they’re doing is not right. We are in a free country.”

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said U.S. Border Patrol “was conducting immigration enforcement operations in a public-access parking lot when several agitators exited their homes and began yelling at law enforcement.”

DHS said the man at first lied about where he was born. In the video, Menera can be heard saying, “I’m from here.”

“Given the inconsistencies in his story and refusal to provide documents, agents briefly detained him,” the DHS statement said. The agency confirmed the man is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

The so-called “Kavanaugh stops” take their name from Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who defended allowing agents to consider factors such as apparent race or ethnicity, accented English, presence at day-labor sites and work in immigrant-heavy industries.

The ACLU of Minnesota filed a class-action lawsuit Jan. 15 accusing federal immigration agents of racially profiling Somali and Latino Minnesotans during Operation Metro Surge, the name of the ongoing deportation operation in the state.

The lawsuit alleges agents unlawfully detain people without warrants or probable cause, ignore proof of citizenship or lawful status and target individuals based on race or perceived ethnicity, violating the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.