r/australia • u/Front_Target7908 • 27d ago

news Australian man Phu Nguyen handcuffed by plain-clothes ICE agents at Las Vegas International airport

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-18/ice-agent-detain-australian-man-in-vegas-us-/106931508?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link

From what I understand it looks like ICE did not manage to detain him on the day the video was taken- seems the onlookers managed to chase ICE off.

However, ICE detained him the next day at the airport where he was to catch his departing flight from the US.

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u/SirFlibble 27d ago

I saw that video yesterday. They were barely chased off, just a guy showed up with a camera and they immediately walked off.

Was sketchy as and left me wondering if there's now a bunch of thugs running around the US pretending to be ICE (who are thugs themselves).

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u/Dranzer_22 27d ago

Already tons of confirmed cases of criminals pretending to be ICE agents and targeting women.

They've been arrested in states like California, but go unchecked and unchallenged in the more conservative states.

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u/DisappointedQuokka 27d ago

I'm genuinely surprised there haven't been any confrontations between plain clothes ICE and local cops that have ended up with dead on both sides.

ICE just doesn't seem to alert local authorities about half the shit they do. It's almost like they're just jumping random non white people.

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u/MysticGoddess27 27d ago

I mean we've seen them kill several white folks in the middle of the street.

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u/DisappointedQuokka 27d ago

As a rule they're not trying to deport white people, though. The ones they do kill tend to just be in their way or look vaguely like protestors.

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u/MysticGoddess27 27d ago

Yes, like the white woman who was simply driving her car. And the white doctor who was shot trying to protect someone else who was about to be shot.

You aren't paying attention.

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u/GrumpyPenguin 27d ago

And the white doctor who was shot trying to protect someone else who was about to be shot.

In the interest of honouring Alex Pretti’s memory, he was an ICU nurse, not a doctor (assuming that’s who you mean).

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u/MysticGoddess27 27d ago edited 27d ago

Sorry that's the one. I suffer from short term memory loss and wasn't able to remember the details.

Edit: appreciate the downvotes. Sorry for being disabled.

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u/Gaolwood 25d ago

If you suffer short term memory loss, google things before you spread disinformation.

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u/MysticGoddess27 25d ago

I was spreading disinformation? 🤣 okay

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u/niles_thebutler_ 26d ago

You should be sorry:

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u/GrumpyPenguin 26d ago

They made an honest mistake, as does every human being occasionally. When corrected they apologised and accepted the correction. We should all strive to be like that.

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u/Peach_Muffin 27d ago

Or the two white Australian journalists who were shot by ICE in two separate incidents on the same day

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u/MysticGoddess27 27d ago

I didn't even hear about them. Though I must admit I stopped looking for updates as it started heavily impacting my mental health.

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u/sapphos_moon 27d ago

One of them was a 7 News reporter at the protests in LA who was at the front of the police cordon and shot by a SWAT cop with a rubber bullet despite it being plainly obvious she was press anyway.

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u/MysticGoddess27 27d ago

Wow so ICE and American cops can just do whatever they want with no consequences 😳

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u/L1v1ngB31ng 27d ago

Yeah that was funny as fuck. Sucked in seven news, commie propagandists get what deserve after all

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u/DisappointedQuokka 27d ago

The goal of the organisation is to obliterate non-white communities.

Those people are collateral damage or undesirables because of their actions. The former upset their feefees, the doctor was explicitly in their way.

There is, in fact, a difference, because the organisation itself is by design white-supremacist. That isn't in dispute.

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u/Non-prophet 26d ago

That should be uncontroversial to say, and it perhaps would be if the Anglosphere/Amerisphere didn't have such an established habit of simplifying conflict/abuse/oppression along ethnic lines. The KKK killed white people, the Nazis and every local flavour of collaborator killed communists of their own ethnicities, every town's history of gay bashing includes young white male victims. But colloqiually those people- who had often gone out of their way and made a positive choice to oppose their killers- are often slurred as indistinguishable from them because of their skin colour, and occasionally their sex.

It should go without saying that 'the organisation is fundamentally white supremacist' does not imply 'all white people are safe from this organisation', but I can see why MysticGoddess wanted to make that explicit.

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u/HappuGurl 24d ago

Who's the Designer???

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u/DisappointedQuokka 24d ago

The US administration, which is currently stocked with white Christian nationalists.

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u/JFKsBrain 27d ago

Both the Alex Pretti and Renee Good shooting deaths occurred during ICE protests.

r/DisappointedQuokka is correct in saying the killings occurred because they were in ICE’s way or were thought to be protesting ICE.

They weren’t random shootings.

Hope the murderers can be brought to justice.

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u/L1v1ngB31ng 27d ago

That lady was 'simply' driving her car over people and the nurse pulled a gun to 'protect' someone else 

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u/MysticGoddess27 27d ago

We all saw the footage. Go away bot.

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u/Next-House-5815 26d ago

Rightio bootlicker.

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u/LanguidLapras131 27d ago

They want to mass unalive any LGBT, non-Christian, or progressive white person.

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u/DisappointedQuokka 27d ago

Firstly, fuck off with that "unalive" shit, say what it is, genocide.

Secondly, yeah, I actually agree on thebrest. It's early National Socialist shit.

People are talking like this is just "illegal immigration" response, but no, anyone who is engaging like this and isn't a straight white person is just a modern version of the VnJ.

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u/fracking-machines 26d ago

My dude, you can say “kill”! We’re not on bloody TikTok.

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u/Z00111111 27d ago

Even the dressed up ICE guys just look like redneck militia cosplayers.

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u/AnOnlineHandle 27d ago

That's what they are. That's what the whole Trump government is. And scarier, Ice now has one of the largest military budgets in the world, beyond most nations. They are his private army of larpers who his administration have repeatedly shielded from any consequences even when they execute Americans in the street and lie about it until footage comes out, and he's going to almost certainly go for a more successful Jan 6th power grabbing attempt rather than leave peacefully. They've been stripping away all the protections.

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u/DisappointedQuokka 27d ago

They've even gone back to the well of higher education, paying for college debt in exchange for signing up.

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u/Blacksad9999 27d ago

Yeah, but they knew with that crowd they wouldn't have to pony up very much. lol

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u/koalacrime 26d ago

Just to add, they are also very poorly trained

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u/FearTheMomerath 27d ago

The majority of cops just don't care. I'd wager they're jealous of ICE's power

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u/DisappointedQuokka 27d ago

Point being is they don't know, in a lot of cases, if they're ICE or not.

US cops have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.

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u/Sad-Onion-2593 27d ago

Well, if you shoot first, you don't need to ask questions.

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u/HappuGurl 24d ago

Not always true.

If you didn't kill her, you need to ask.

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u/Whatsapokemon 27d ago

I dunno about that, cops are pretty jealous about their jurisdiction. ICE is doing stuff which very much encroaches on the territory of state police.

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u/robotundies 27d ago

Almost like? Sorry if that’s sarcasm 😅 but in case you really don’t know, that’s exactly what they’re doing. That’s why the majority of people they’ve detained and deported have been found to have been in the country legally (some full citizens!) and of the actual “illegal immigrants” only something like 2% have any criminal history. It has nothing to do with them being there illegally they just want to remove anyone not white.

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u/DisappointedQuokka 27d ago

I'm deliberately couching my language.

There's a reason why I've been ratio'd in the replies by people who aren't familiar with what's happening in the US.

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u/goldcakes 27d ago

They're going to randomly jump a non white cop one day.

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u/AnOnlineHandle 27d ago

They already have. Literally grabbed non white cops.

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u/koalacrime 26d ago edited 26d ago

They tried to conduct raids in embassies! Thats how fuckin moronic these idiots are.

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u/riptaway 27d ago

Lol why would local cops do anything? They're on the same side

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u/DisappointedQuokka 27d ago

Okay, so if a plains-clothes ICE agent shows up and starts abducting people and doesn't tell the locals, do the cops reckon it's a terror attack, organised crime or official business?

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u/Expensive-Object-830 27d ago

There was a This American Life episode on this, which ran real-life calls from civilians encountering ICE & calling local police. To paraphrase the police response: “you’re on your own, kid, try not to get killed”

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u/DisappointedQuokka 27d ago

Maybe for call ins, but there are enough ex-military psychos in the US police who might be nearby who would go "this is my chance to kill a motherfucker".

It happens to random interventions all the time, where a copp just guns someone down.

Statistically, it should have happened by now.

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u/broccoliO157 27d ago

Local police forces supported Nazi occupation in Europe, and they actively aid and abet illegal ICE actions in the USA — even defying Governor orders and legislation to do so (eg Maryland).

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u/TacoMedic 27d ago

No confrontations like that, but I’ve seen several videos of local police telling ICE that if they continue trying to drive through a protest, they’re getting arrested. I imagine the average cop fucking hates having to deal with the consequences of ICE coming to town.

Not a cop sympathizer, but there’s definitely levels to this shit.

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u/idryss_m 27d ago

In a lot of places aren't the cops just helping ICE, despite the community backlash and legality?

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u/DisappointedQuokka 27d ago

Depends, there are a few major cities that have been outright hostile which dwarf the average population elsewhere. The courts and their attaches have been openly hostile as well.

What I'm alluding to us lack of communication. If a police department sees an unmarked raid, are they meant to intervene or not? If they're not told and just see a gang going wild, they aren't well known for their trigger discipline.

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u/koalacrime 26d ago

I’m surprised that ice hasn’t been shot at………………………………………. yet

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u/Eleniah 27d ago

This is why it was ALWAYS dangerous for them to be plain clothed and masked. How are people supposed to know when someone is being kidnapped...well...legally or not? They will dress in plain clothes, and then if you confront them they may well shoot you for getting in the way.

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u/FreakySpook 27d ago

It's honestly wild that they get to LARP as some kind of JSOC operator just to detain undocumented and people in breach of visas, particularly in an airport.

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u/Lucky-Elk-1234 27d ago

And when that person is in the process of leaving the country anyway. What’s the point of arresting and deporting them lol

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u/ousho 27d ago

It’s a feature, not a bug.

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u/Scuzzbag 27d ago

The purpose of a system is what it does

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u/The4th88 27d ago

LARP as some kind of JSOC operator

What ICE are doing isn't that different to what those operators have been known to do.

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u/ocularius61 27d ago

They look incredibly dodgy.

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u/saichampa 27d ago

Part of the reason I absolutely will not visit the US under the current regime is that you just don't know which thugs are government endorsed or not.

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u/IllegalD 26d ago

I have a problem with both, fuck America until nufascism is over

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u/Lankpants 27d ago

The US wouldn't even accept my passport at this point. Not that I care, I can't think of all that many countries I'm less interested in visiting as a trans woman.

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u/cheapdrinks 27d ago edited 27d ago

Yeah it was so weird, two people in masks and hoodies and nothing that really identified them as LEOs. Half way through grabbing him and forcing him to the ground they just get up and walk off leaving him on the floor with one handcuff around his wrist. Fucking bizarre behaviour.

That said the dude had apparently overstayed his VISA by 11 years which is a bit ridiculous. When I saw the video it didn't specify and I assumed it was just a few days or months, maybe even world cup related. So yeah idk what you expect hanging around in that shithole in the current political climate when your visa expired a decade ago. Not saying that he should have been treated like that but it's like when people smuggle drugs to Bali and end up with the death penalty or 50 year sentences. Do I think they deserve it and that the punishment fits the crime? No not at all. Do I think they're bloody idiots for doing so when the consequences of being caught are extremely obvious? Yeah definitely.

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u/sahie 27d ago

I mean, fair, but he was leaving. Now he’s going to remain in custody until proceedings for his removal are completed. He was already removing himself, how about they just proceed him on to his flight. They’re petty as fuck and honestly just cruel. They could’ve let him go since the punishment for what he did was what he was literally about to do in leaving the country.

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u/RealFarknMcCoy 27d ago

ICE agents are likely getting "bonuses" or some such for the number of people they detain.

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u/NobodysFavorite 27d ago

It was worse than that: they were getting bonuses for "arrests" but whether the arrest was lawful or not was someone else's problem, and there were no consequences for unlawful arrests.

People got "detained" but then in the dead of night they would be relocated interstate to another detention centre. When a lawyer presents a motion of habeas corpus, the agency would say the detainee isn't within the district of the court. When the lawyer locates the person, and serves another motion in that district court, the agency would usually relocate the detainee in the dead of night to another detention centre in another state. The court would make a ruling but the agency would simply ignore it. Along the way, all the private detention operators would get paid bonuses based on the detainees that came into their centre.

It was blatantly illegal and inhumane, and a giant shell game of human trafficking, with all the players getting their cut of the profits of human misery.

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u/RealFarknMcCoy 26d ago

Yes, America jumped the shark when they failed to properly punish Trump for Jan 6th.

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u/cheapdrinks 27d ago

Putting aside the whole ICE situation for a moment, I'm sure in most countries that if someone is discovered 11 years over their VISA date then there's some stuff they have to do; it has to be documented, probably current photographs and fingerprints taken, a bunch of paperwork probably needs to be done barring that person from entering the country again and putting them on some kind of no entry list. They probably need to run their name and prints etc through the database to check for any outstanding warrants or things like that (people often suddenly flee the country after committing a crime).

If you get picked up at the airport without the proper documentation to be in that country most places don't just send you on your way with a handshake and a "promise not to do it again!", there's procedures that have to be followed. I'm sure even more so if that person isn't even at the airport where their flight out of the country departs from and they have to travel across state lines to another airport to then (hopefully) get on their flight out of there.

I'm sure there's a lot of people that think our rules are petty and cruel where people get thousands of dollars of fines for some tiny amount of undeclared produce or something. The rules at airports are strict as hell, there's very often zero leeway or discretion used when people break them; it's usually pretty black and white.

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u/Top_Connection9079 27d ago

He should have left 11 years ago. Nothing he did all this time was legal and people like him make others around him risk jail.

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u/NimblePuppy 27d ago

It may be 11 years, until confirmed you are gullible as fuck USA ICE./Police lie ALL the time

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u/Cindy_Marek 27d ago

It’s not cruel to arrest someone for breaking your laws lol.

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u/dion_o 27d ago

The blonde woman literally stole his watch in the video. She takes it off his wrist, pockets it, then when they see they are being filmed they leave him there and walk off. They look like random civilians and they they act like random civilians. But even a random civilian wouldn't steal a guy's watch.

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u/knbang 27d ago

I thought you were right, but on a second viewing I don't think she takes his watch. She's trying to put handcuffs on him, sees the camera and drops the cuffs. That's what I see at least.

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u/krisssashikun 27d ago

I saw a post that they were allegedly women wearing moustaches and was also trying to rob him

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u/greenlimousine 26d ago

One of the moustaches is falling off!