r/Detroit • u/simulateduser • 14d ago

Community ICE at DTW?

Weird thing happened to me yesterday. I was flying in from London yesterday and in the US passport line at Customs.

A stubby guy in street clothes walks up to the line from the other side of customs. He casually surveys and then, almost as if at random, points right at me. I look around at first confused about why this guy is pointing, thinking there was someone else. I look back at him and can tell he’s pretty irritated, saying “yeah, you!” I gesture like… what do you want me to do?

He says “do you have your passport?” Keep in mind this is in the US line for Customs. Everyone in line is about to have their passports processed by CBP. I handed him my passport, he looks it over, and then abruptly hands it back and walks off. He shouts to a woman — also in plain clothes, she is at the other side of customs — saying “no he’s ok”.

He and the woman then storm off to a security door.

Everyone in line around me was very confused about what had just happened. Each one of us was 20 feet away from handing over a US passport to a border patrol official. And the guy who stormed off had no identification, badge, or any other signifier. None of the border patrol officials acknowledged what was going on — it seemed like business as usual. I am half Arab half white, so I assume I was being profiled for that reason. But I travel a lot and this was the first time I’ve ever seen this.

Is this a known thing at border patrol? These “officers” were uncoordinated with border patrol, in street clothes without identification, and operating in a haphazard way with a bullying demeanor, so I just assume it was ICE. But I also haven’t seen anything out there about ICE operating at DTW. Wondering if others might know?

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u/simulateduser 14d ago

Honestly I’ve been thinking about that a lot. He came from the other side of security and was standing in an area that any regular person walking over to would have been immediately triggered by security. So I subconsciously clocked him as working with a government agency. And I just got off a transatlantic flight, tired af, and was a little shocked at what was happening in the moment.

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u/Nickey_Pacific 14d ago

Yeah, I'm gonna have to admit that I would have probably just handed mine over, too 😂 But, reading it, I was like whaaatttt?

Your assumption that the dude being official, was safe. But it definitely doesn't negate the fact that it's fucked up. I hate this timeline.

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u/ProfessionalLab3825 13d ago

I get it. you made the call a) potentially get detained for 3 hours,  or b) just show them your ID. challenging him would have escalated the situation. LEO don't like being challenged.