Before You Judge Those ICE Officers, Read What Actually Happened.
A video from Harry Reid International Airport went viral recently.
Two plainclothes ICE officers tried to detain a man. He resisted. A crowd gathered.
The officers walked away, leaving him with one handcuff still on his wrist.
My opponent in Assembly District 9, Ryan Hampton, saw a political opportunity.
He posted on X calling the officers “masked thugs” with “no badges” and “no accountability.” Then demanded I answer for it.
I'm happy to answer. But first, let's get the actual facts straight, because Hampton skipped most of them.
What actually happened
The man in the video is Phu Nguyen, a 57-year-old Australian citizen born in Vietnam. He entered the U.S. legally on a visa back in May 2013. That visa expired in May 2015.
Nguyen unlawfully stayed anyway, for roughly a decade, without legal status.
Since January 2025, the federal government has run a program called CBP Home that lets people here illegally self-deport. It comes with a free flight home and a cash stipend, now $2,600.
Nguyen had that option available to him. He didn't take it.
On July 13, ICE officers approached Nguyen at Reid International. According to the Las Vegas Metro Police Department, the officers attempted to detain him. A crowd formed.
The Department of Homeland Security says officers disengaged “to de-escalate the situation and for officer safety.”
They left before finishing the arrest, and Nguyen was left with a handcuff still attached. Metro Police checked him for warrants, found none, and removed the cuff.
The next day, ICE arrested Nguyen at Los Angeles International Airport when he landed.
No standoff. No crowd. No incident.
Plainclothes arrests aren't new, and they aren't sinister
Federal officers, like local detectives and narcotics units, sometimes work without a uniform on purpose.
If a target sees a uniform coming, he runs, hides evidence, or warns others.
Working low-profile lets officers close the distance and make contact before that happens. It's standard practice across law enforcement, not something ICE invented.
And once a crowd starts pressing in on two officers making an arrest in a packed terminal, backing off isn't losing control of the situation. It's the responsible call.
In fact, a uniformed TSA officer had to step in and create space between the agents and bystanders. That alone tells you the situation was getting tense.
ICE finished the job safely the next day instead of forcing a confrontation in a crowded airport. That's good judgment, not incompetence.
Hampton wants you outraged. He doesn't want you to think.
Hampton didn't wait for the facts. He grabbed the viral clip and asked Nevada voters to judge an entire federal agency off it.
No context on who Nguyen is.
No mention that he'd overstayed his visa for a decade.
No mention that he had a paid, government-funded path to leave voluntarily and chose not to use it.
That's not an accident. That's propaganda.
Hampton has already told us not to do this
Back in June 2020, Hampton posted a graphic on social media that read:
“Judging a demonstration by its most violent participants but NOT judging a police force by its most violent cops is the language of the OPPRESSOR.”
He tagged it #blacklivesmatter.
His point at the time: don't paint an entire movement based on the actions of a handful of bad actors within it.
But that's exactly what he's doing now.
Two ICE officers had a botched encounter at an airport. Hampton took that one incident and used it to condemn every agent in the agency, no context, no benefit of the doubt.
The same standard he demanded for demonstrators in 2020 he refuses to extend to ICE in 2026.
You don't get to have it both ways, Ryan.
Hampton has already told us where he stands on border control
This isn't the first time Hampton has shown his hand on immigration enforcement.
In 2019, he wrote: “In order to save American lives, we don't need to stop immigrants at our border, we need to stop America's homegrown big pharma cartel.”
Read that again.
Hampton didn't just make a point about pharmaceutical companies. He explicitly said stopping immigrants at the border isn't something we need to do.
That's his position. In his own words.
I disagree.
I believe in a lawful, orderly immigration system with real enforcement and real consequences for people who ignore it, like Nguyen did for ten years.
I believe our officers deserve backup when they're doing a hard job, not a viral pile-on every time a video gets clipped out of context.
And this airport video didn't happen in a vacuum.
Anti-ICE rhetoric has escalated across the country over the past year, with agents doxxed, harassed, and in some cases physically attacked simply for doing their jobs.
When politicians like Hampton rush to brand federal officers “masked thugs” before the facts are even in, they're not holding anyone accountable. They're pouring gasoline on a fire that's already putting real people in real danger, including the officers themselves and their families.
Hampton can keep chasing outrage over enforcement of our immigration laws.
I'll back the men and women who enforce those laws lawfully and professionally, like the officers did here.
And in November, the voters of AD9 will decide which of us they want representing them in Carson City.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. Digital technology was used in the research, writing, and production of this article. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
