WASHINGTON — U.S. Park Police tailed a man while he commuted home from work in Washington — but when he stopped to get water, ICE showed up and took him away.

A pool maintenance man got stopped by the Park Police, but it was U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who scanned his driver’s license and arrested him on the spot.

And, in another arrest that started with Park Police, a traffic stop turned into an immigration bust when ICE officers suddenly appeared to handcuff and detain the driver.

All of those alleged incidents showed up in a review of court records filed from September to February that found at least 10 arrests of immigrants by ICE in operations that involved the Park Police in the D.C. area. At least three involved arrests of workers traveling in commercial vehicles, according to the review by Capital News Service and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Advocates say this tranche of documents reveals only a fraction of the total arrests they are witnessing on the parkways and streets patrolled by Park Police.

The court documents were filed by both plaintiffs and defendants in a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security alleging the agency has violated federal law by making immigration arrests in D.C. without a warrant or probable cause. The records consist of immigrants’ sworn declarations and ICE arrest records. Most of the accounts are filed under pseudonyms because people fear retaliation against themselves or their families.

At a time when ICE is increasingly reliant on alliances with other law enforcement agencies to fulfill the president’s immigration agenda, a partnership with the Park Police and a quirk in traffic law have streamlined efforts to take immigrants into custody.

Park Police have jurisdiction over federal land in the Washington metropolitan area, along with parts of San Francisco and New York City. They are tasked with protecting national monuments and surrounding areas, including federally managed roads such as the Baltimore-Washington, Clara Barton and George Washington Memorial parkways.

But the agency’s responsibilities also include working with DHS. By spring, it’s planning to add more than 300 new officers in D.C., according to a spokesperson. A $70,000 signing bonus is advertised on the force’s website.

Advocates say officers are using public safety laws as a pretext to make immigration arrests.

“I think it’s obvious they’re profiling,” said Austin Rose, an attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. “They pull over a work truck, assuming it’s going to be a Latino man. … That’s the basis for what they’re doing.”

Rose is one of several attorneys representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit against DHS.

It’s conduct that fits a pattern of behavior by law enforcement agencies across the country, according to Naureen Shah, director of government affairs for the equality division of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“They’re simply using the legal authorities that they have, whether it be for investigating traffic violations or inspections of food and commercial vehicles inspections, to stop people and pull them out of their cars and demand to see their papers,” she said.

The Trump administration doesn’t dispute the joint operations.

“President [Donald] Trump has transformed D.C. from a crime-ridden mess into a beautiful, clean, safe city,” said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson. “To ensure the long-term success of the operation, federal and local law enforcement officers continue to work together to keep D.C. safe.”

In March 2025, Trump announced in an executive order the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force. Led by Stephen Miller, the president’s homeland security adviser, the task force facilitates collaboration among a slew of federal agencies, including DHS and the Department of the Interior, which oversees the Park Police.

The order tasked the group with activities that align with the administration’s goals, including increasing police presence in the city and strictly enforcing public safety and immigration laws.

In December, the task force organized the traffic stop where the pool maintenance technician was arrested. On that day, agents from ICE, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Diplomatic Security Service reported to a local parkway to assist the Park Police, according to an ICE arrest record filed in the lawsuit against DHS.

When the Park Police conducted the traffic stop, an ICE officer took the opportunity to interview the man about his legal status, according to the report. In a sworn declaration filed last month, the man said the agents did not ask him about his legal status or life circumstances, in contradiction to ICE’s account.

He had no criminal record, the man said, and ICE hadn’t put a warrant out for his arrest. The interaction was the first he’d had with any law enforcement group during his 13 years living in the United States.

Still, the ICE agents snapped his driver’s license in half and told him he wasn’t allowed to be in the country.

DHS did not respond to a request for comment.

Work vehicles targeted

The spokesperson from the Park Police’s public information office maintained the agency does not conduct immigration-related stops or arrests. Vehicles are stopped, she said in an emailed statement, to enforce traffic and public safety laws.

One such traffic law prohibits commercial vehicles, including cargo vans and trucks carrying construction materials, from driving on national parkways without a special permit.

The rule exists, the Park Police spokesperson said, because parkway features such as low-clearance bridges and narrower lanes make the roads unsuitable for commercial travel. Violating the law, she said, usually results in a traffic citation.

But, when immigrants’ work vehicles are pulled over by Park Police at multi-agency traffic stops, court records show, some drivers have been taken into custody by DHS agents for immigration violations.

Park Police told one man he was not allowed to drive on a parkway that runs through Rock Creek Park in Washington because his van had a ladder on top. The car was registered in his name, his license plates and registration were current and he was driving within the speed limit, the man said in a sworn declaration. He’d previously driven on the road “nearly every day” without issue.

Still, immigration agents responded to the scene and arrested him.

While the CNS/Howard Center review found at least five arrests on Washington-area parkways, it’s hard to capture the full extent of immigration arrests that occur at Park Police-initiated traffic stops because publicly available data is limited.

One Maryland-based watchdog group said their organization has documented at least 23 arrests resulting in abandoned vehicles on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway since mid-November. Twenty of those vehicles were work trucks or vans, according to the group’s records.

The group says it has observed that ICE and Park Police operations appear to wax and wane in activity over time. The group asked that CNS withhold its name, fearing retaliation against the organization and its individual members.

The Park Police’s spokesperson said the commercial vehicle ban was in place before the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force and commercial vehicle inspections are routine. Its partner agencies, she said, do not interfere with traffic stops.

“After we have completed the reason for our stop, DHS, if present, may have follow-up questions that may result in an arrest,” she said.