Plaintiffs allege LA immigration raids driven by racial discrimination
LOS ANGELES (KESQ) - Plaintiffs in a closely watched lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security today amended their complaint to allege that the Trump administration's illegal immigration raids in Southern California are not just unlawful, but deliberately designed to target Latino communities.
Residents, workers and advocacy groups sued the DHS in July 2025 alleging unconstitutional stop and detention practices by agents tied to arbitrary enforcement quotas. A Los Angeles federal judge initially issued a temporary restraining order limiting certain enforcement actions, but in August 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the government's request to stay that order while litigation proceeds, allowing the challenged practices to continue.
The amended complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court includes two new claims:
-- Equal protection: The government is intentionally discriminating against Latino communities in California, choosing whom to stop and which locations to raid based on race, and treating Latino people differently because of their apparent ethnicity; and
-- Unreasonable tactics: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol use highly intrusive tactics in carrying out their raids -- such as handcuffing, confinement, moving people to a secondary location, and prolonged detention. Agents are quick to both show and use force, often arriving with weapons drawn and using force even when community members are already compliant. These tactics are unreasonable and turn encounters into unlawful arrests, the plaintiffs allege.
A message seeking comment from DHS/ICE was not immediately answered Thursday.
Trump administration officials have previously defended the stepped-up enforcement on a number of levels, saying the crackdown is necessary to maintain the rule of law, to capture violent criminals in the country illegally, and to reverse the flood of people who poured over the U.S. Mexico border during the Biden administration.
However, Eva Bitran, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California's immigrants' rights director, said the stops are ``discriminatory in design and execution. ICE and Border Patrol's racist agenda extends from DHS leadership down to rank-and-file officers who deliberately target Latino community members -- often with great force -- because of their race. Our community suffers the consequences of this unconstitutional conduct.''
The suit was originally brought in June 2025 by five individual Latino workers and three membership organizations -- the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights -- as well as Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a legal services provider.
