LOS ANGELES — Federal agents are violating a court order that prohibits them from racially profiling Latinos and other Southern California residents as the directive winds it way through an appeals process, immigrant advocates and local officials say.
U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, a Biden-era appointee, imposed the temporary restraining order in Los Angeles more than a month ago, but arrests in locations frequented by Latino workers, such as Home Depots and car washes, have become daily occurrences.
“It’s a complete disregard,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA. “It’s almost like the rounding up of cattle in the road.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, denies racially profiling people in its efforts to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
“Unelected judges are undermining the will of the American people,” DHS said Wednesday in an emailed statement. “What makes someone a target of ICE is if they are illegally in the U.S. — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and Public Counsel, which filed the original lawsuit in July, filed a new motion Tuesday asking Frimpong to order additional evidence from the federal government “in light of apparent violations” of her order.
“This limited discovery is needed to determine whether further action may be necessary to enforce the Court’s TRO and to inform what additional measures, if any, may be needed to ensure compliance with any preliminary injunction the Court may issue,” the motion reads.
It details six arrests in August — three at Home Depots and three at car washes in Los Angeles County — that appear to undermine the temporary restraining order.
In one instance, on Aug. 22, federal agents detained seven people at a Pasadena car wash, including a legal resident, according to the motion. The man was handcuffed and detained despite having proper documentation nearby, the motion said. He was later released but described the incident as “devastating and humiliating.”
Frustrated by the lengthy court battle, immigrant rights’ organizers say communities are being torn apart while lawyers file motion after motion. But local officials say the order has been difficult to enforce while litigation remains ongoing.
“We’re using every tool at our disposal to put a stop to this behavior,” said Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto.
Last month, Soto’s office led a coalition of 20 California cities — including Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Long Beach — in joining a federal lawsuit alleging that the federal government conducted unconstitutional and unlawful arrests and raids without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.
The organizations asked the court to stop federal agencies from using “disproportionate force,” which has sometimes led to U.S. citizens being detained.
The federal government twice challenged the temporary restraining order, first in the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals and then in the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling was upheld in the appeals court, and the Supreme Court has not weighed in on the issue.
The lawsuit is set for a hearing on Sept. 24 for a preliminary injunction that would extend the order as the case progresses through the courts.
Meanwhile, immigration advocates said they recorded more than a dozen arrests at Home Depots and car washes in Los Angeles and Orange counties Tuesday.
Volunteers who witnessed the arrests or went to the scene to help families get information about their missing loved ones said the workers all spoke Spanish.
Eight people were arrested last week outside a Home Depot near a day labor center, which has been the target of at least three previous enforcement actions, NBC Los Angeles reported.
Video shot by immigration advocates and circulated on social media shows federal agents arriving in unmarked cars as workers run, some tripping over themselves.
DHS said in a statement that three of the eight people had “extensive rap sheets,” but did not mention the other five.
“Every day, DHS is enforcing our nation’s laws across all of LA not just Home Depots,” the department said in Wednesday’s emailed statement.
The operation unfolded at the same Home Depot where federal agents jumped out of a Penske rental van and took a dozen people into custody.
Joshua Erazo, a day laborer organizer who connects workers with employers at the center, told NBC Los Angeles that the people who were detained included street vendors.
Data compiled by CHIRLA shows that 471 of the 2,800 arrests made by the Department of Homeland Security from June 6 to July 20 occurred in predominantly Latino neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley.
As of Wednesday, Homeland Security has made more than 5,000 arrests in Los Angeles, “including murderers, rapists, and child abusers,” it said in the statement.
Believing they have little recourse, some residents have filed individual lawsuits instead of waiting for the temporary restraining order to be enforced.
Lawyers representing a Los Angeles mother took the first step last week toward suing the federal government after her teenage son was detained by agents at gunpoint in a case of mistaken identity. They filed a claim for $1 million in damages for personal injury, including “assault, battery, false arrest, false imprisonment,” according to court documents.
Andreina Mejia said she and her son, who is 15 and has special needs, were sitting inside her parked car outside Arleta High School when masked federal agents approached them with guns drawn. They were both pulled out and Mejia was handcuffed while agents questioned her son, she said.
“He didn’t know what was going on,” she said. “So, I just told him, ‘Don’t make any movement, don’t move, just follow instructions.’”
Agents asked for the whereabouts of a person whose name her son did not recognize and briefly detained him when he could not provide information, Mejia said. One of the agents appeared to realize they had the wrong person and let her son go, she said.
Mejia and her son are U.S. citizens. Agents said they were looking for a young man from El Salvador.
“The family is Mexican American,” said Mejia’s attorney, Christian Contreras. “It feels as if they were exploited, abused and taken advantage of because of the color of their skin.”
The interaction has left lasting scars on her son, who now suffers from nightmares and sometimes “breaks down” in tears when she’s driving, Mejia said.
“People with the slightest shade of brown in their skin in L.A. fear that they may be the target of immigration officials,” Contreras said. “It’s across the board now.”
