Federal Immigration Agents Used Racial Slurs During Los Angeles Raids, Court Evidence Shows
Plaintiffs say text messages and body camera footage show agents used slurs and race-based cues, undercutting the government’s claim of intelligence-led stops.
- On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union and Public Counsel filed a 42-page motion seeking to bar an "ongoing campaign of suspicionless and discriminatory detentive stops" in the Central District of California.
- Attorneys allege ICE transitioned to a "policy of race-based profiling" last year, instructing field offices to arrest "collaterals," or nontargets, en masse while conducting "roving patrols."
- Discovery revealed agents used slurs like "tonk" and "wet" while discussing "soft counts" of "possibles," with evidence suggesting "paltry intelligence" was manufactured to justify operations agents were already intent on raiding.
- District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong is weighing contempt charges for failing to image cell phones from 15 identified operations, despite more than 800 officers confirming they used personal phones during raids.
- Mayra Joachín, an attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, stated evidence demonstrates "race is the predominant characteristic driving Defendants' stops," urging the court to block agents from relying on perceived Latino ethnicity.
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Federal immigration agents used racial slurs during Los Angeles raids, court evidence shows
Please be aware that this report includes content some people may find offensive.As federal immigration agents surged throughout the U.S. for Operation at Large during the summer of 2025, some officials in Southern California referred to potential detainees using language widely considered to be racial slurs describing Hispanic and Latino individuals as wets and tonks body-camera footage and text messages cited in new court filings reveal.Just p…
Horrific slurs revealed in Border Patrol body cameras and text messages: report
Border Patrol agents involved in last year's federal takeover of Los Angeles tossed around slurs to refer to Latinos while going about their patrol and arrest work, reported the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.This occurred under the command of former Border Patrol leader Greg Bovino, who became infamous for overseeing brutal crackdowns against migrants and protesters alike in every city he went to."The agents called them things like 'tonk' and 'we…
ACLU: Immigration agents used racial slurs to target Latinos during Southern California raids
The allegations came in a motion for a preliminary injunction in the closely watched Vasquez Perdomo vs. Noem case, a much-watched civil rights case with its roots in Pasadena.
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