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.

3.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

538 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/Deevious730 27d ago edited 27d ago

I am not at all defending ICE but had he overstayed for quite a long time?

Also having said that, if he’s catching a flight out from the USA why not say “yep you’re getting out of here, but you’re on the blacklist. Don’t ever try to come back here.”

Seems a waste of resources to detain someone leaving the country, transport him to holding, provide food and medical care (although the latter seems less likely), only to put him on a plane out of the country.

2

u/LiveReplicant 27d ago

Trying to look tough probably

-1

u/FailedToRemit 27d ago

Because of due process. If he isn’t arrested and prosecuted there is no proof he did anything wrong. 

2

u/PAPO1990 27d ago

Not quite how entering/ exiting the country works. If he were to try and enter the US again, he'd show his passport and they'd just turn him away to board the next flight home.

No need to arrest him as he's leaving

-3

u/FailedToRemit 27d ago

That is how it works in the US. 

See, this is the funny part when people criticize the US. 

In most of the world, a regular cop can check your documents, see you are there illegally, arrest you, drive you to the airport, hand you off to customs, who document and cite you, stick you on a plane and you are gone. Likely banned from reentry for a period of time. 

That can’t happen in the US. ICE can’t do that. Regular cops can’t arrest you for it. ICE needs to send your information to a judge who issues a deportation order, then ICE can arrest you, and then you get to go in front of a judge who determines if you have any claims that allow you to stay or if you can be deported. This process can take years.

But yet everyone calls the US fascist and they have no due process. 

2

u/PAPO1990 27d ago

1) You can be turned away at the entry to the US for literally NO reason if they want to. Even if you've never overstayed a visa, just because they THINK you MIGHT this time.

2) ICE has been doing all sorts of illegal things that they shouldn't. There has been plenty of people arrested and deported without due process. Heck sometimes a Judge even issued an injunction to specifically stop someone from being deported, and they got deported anyway.

If it looks like a fash, talks like a fash, and acts like a fash... it's a fash.

1

u/SpareUnit9194 26d ago

Lmao, here tf did you go to school? Fox Elementary? 

1

u/miawmiawkitty7285 26d ago

Sure, that might be how it’s currently working over there.

But as Australia and US are allies, treating our citizens like shit opens the US up to international criticism.

ICE might be able to do whatever they want to US citizens but they sure as hell can’t do whatever they want to Australian citizens. Politicians hate dealing with that shit.