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LA Judge Orders ICE to Stop 'Indiscriminately Rounding Up' Immigrants Using Racial Profiling
"No matter the color of their skin, what language they speak, or where they work, everyone is guaranteed constitutional rights to protect them from unlawful stops," said an attorney with the ACLU of Southern California.
Jul 12, 2025
A federal judge in Los Angeles has ordered the Trump administration to stop carrying out indiscriminate immigration raids in the city and its surrounding areas, citing its use of "unconstitutional tactics," including racial profiling and denying the right to an attorney.
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California wrote that there is a "mountain of evidence" that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents are "indiscriminately rounding up numerous individuals without reasonable suspicion" in violation of the Fourth Amendment during their "roving patrols" in the region.
She issued two temporary restraining orders against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). One bars agents from targeting individuals based on race or ethnicity; speaking Spanish or English with an accent; presence in specific locations such as bus stops, car washes, or agricultural sites; or type of employment. The second requires DHS to provide access to attorneys for those who are arrested.
The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other local legal organizations on behalf of five plaintiffs who said their rights were violated by immigration agents.
According to the complaint:
The raids in this district follow a common, systematic pattern. Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from. If they hesitate, attempt to leave, or do not answer the questions to the satisfaction of the agents, they are detained, sometimes tackled, handcuffed, and/or taken into custody.
In these interactions, agents typically have no prior information about the individual and no warrant of any kind. If agents make an arrest, contrary to federal law, they do not make any determination of whether a person poses a risk of flight before a warrant can be obtained. Also contrary to federal law, the agents do not identify themselves or explain why the individual is being arrested.
Two of the plaintiffs were U.S. citizens.
One of them, a dual U.S. and Mexican citizen, said he was questioned and detained by unidentified officers on three separate occasions while working at a car wash in Orange County. Agents insisted that his passport was fake and repeatedly asked if he was American.
Another U.S. citizen was told he was arrested because he "looked like an illegal alien." Agents with military-style rifles and handguns repeatedly asked him, "What hospital were you born at?" When he could not answer the question, an officer grabbed him and shoved him against a metal fence. After he showed the officers his Real ID, he says they took it and never returned it to him.
"No matter the color of their skin, what language they speak, or where they work, everyone is guaranteed constitutional rights to protect them from unlawful stops," said Mohammad Tajsar, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.
"While it does not take a federal judge to recognize that marauding bands of masked, rifle-toting goons have been violating ordinary people’s rights throughout Southern California, we are hopeful that today’s ruling will be a step toward accountability for the federal government’s flagrant lawlessness that we have all been witnessing," he added.
Since early June, Southern California has been the epicenter of the Trump administration's "mass deportation" push, with thousands of immigrants detained—often by unidentified, masked agents—in sweeping raids that have traumatized Latino communities across the state.
Despite the administration publicizing the arrests of violent criminals, the vast majority of those arrested have no criminal history. More than 1,500 people have been disappeared, the ACLU said last week, "in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration."
"Due process, access to counsel, dignity, and respect were not afforded to our loved ones, our friends, our neighbors as ICE plowed through our community in their obsessive, racially motivated quest for quotas," said Angelica Salas, executive director at Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA). "No one is above the law, and today’s decision reaffirms that President Trump and all its immigration enforcement apparatus must follow the Constitution."
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Farmworker in Critical Condition After Fall From Greenhouse During California ICE Raid
"ICE is out of control," said one Democratic congresswoman. "This is not law enforcement. It is state violence."
Jul 11, 2025
[UPDATE: An earlier version of this piece reported that the farmworker, Jaime Alanís Garcia, had died from his injuries, which was based on a statement from the United Farm Workers that was widely reported. Following the publication of this piece, the Ventura County Medical Center released a statement saying that he was alive and in critical condition. The piece has been updated to reflect this new information.]
A Mexican farmworker who reportedly fell from a greenhouse while trying to hide during a Trump administration raid on a Southern California farm is in critical condition, according to the Ventura County Medical Center. He was initially reported dead by several media outlets following a statement from the United Farmworkers.
Federal authorities including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, many clad in military-style gear, stormed farms in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties on Thursday to execute search warrants for undocumented people. At Glass House Farms in Camarillo—which grows state-legal cannabis as well as tomatoes and cucumbers—the invading agents were met with spirited resistance from hundreds of community members who rushed to the site in support of targeted workers. Federal officers responded by firing tear gas and less-lethal projectiles at crowds of protesters who were blocking area roadways in a bid to prevent arrests.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that officers "arrested approximately 200 illegal aliens" from Glass House Farms and another farm in Carpinteria, Santa Barbara County, where protesters also descended, and were met with tear gas and pepper balls, according to local news outlets. DHS also said they found at least 10 immigrant children on the farm.
The Associated Press reported that a farmworker, identified as Jaime Alanís, phoned his wife in Mexico and told her about the raid in progress, saying he was hiding with other workers. Alanís fell from his hiding place and suffered broken neck, fractured skull, and a rupture in an artery that pumps blood to the brain, his niece Yesenia—who did not want to give her full name—told the AP.
"They told us he won't make it and to say goodbye," she said.
The Ventura County Medical Center later released a statement saying that Alanís "is currently hospitalized at VCMC and remains in critical condition."
United Farm Workers (UFW) said Friday that "other workers, including U.S. citizens, remain unaccounted for."
"Our staff is on the ground supporting families," UFW said in a statement. "Many workers, including U.S. citizens, were held by federal authorities at the farm for eight hours or more. U.S. citizen workers report only being released after they were forced to delete photos and videos of the raid from their phones."
"UFW is also aware of reports of child labor on site," the union continued. "The UFW demands the immediate facilitation of independent legal representation for the minor workers, to protect them from further harm. Farmworkers are excluded from basic child labor laws."
"These violent and cruel federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives, and separate families," UFW added. "There is no city, state, or federal district where it is legal to terrorize and detain people for being brown and working in agriculture. These raids must stop immediately."
The raids appear to be ramping up, even before ICE receives an historic $46 billion funding infusion via the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump last week. Video footage posted on social media in recent days showed ICE officers and other federal agents arresting people in courthouses, a hospital, and marching through a suburban Utah neighborhood.
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Democratic U.S. lawmakers were among those condemning the Trump administration's crackdown.
"This is a heartbreaking and deeply troubling development," Congresswoman Norma Torres (D-Calif.) said on social media. "Immigrant communities deserve safety and dignity. I'm calling for a full investigation and accountability."
"Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) said that "ICE is out of control."
"This is not law enforcement," she added. "It is state violence."
Some observers called on Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom—who has overseen several legal challenges to the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants and protesters who defend them—to do more to help people targeted by ICE.
"If Newsom really cared about defending our state and our communities, he'd be on the line with other farmers by last night," Murshed Zaheed, a former U.S. Senate Democratic leadership staffer, said on the social media site Bluesky.
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Federal Agents Spray Tear Gas at Protesters, Children During ICE Raids at California Farms
"ICE was conducting a raid using disproportionate displays of force against local farmworkers and our agricultural community," said U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, who was denied entry to one farm where he was attempting to provide oversight.
Jul 11, 2025
Federal immigration agents were met with a strong show of resistance Thursday when they raided two farms in Southern California—with hundreds of community members protesting the arrests of migrants at the facilities growing cannabis and vegetables.
Los Angeles-based independent journalist Mel Buer reported that hundreds of community members gathered to protest the raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Glass House Farms' facility in Camarillo, Ventura County, and supporters dropped "hundreds of pounds of water, food, and masks."
Local news outlet KTLA reported that "dozens of farmworkers were detained" in the raids at Glass House Farms' properties in Camarillo and Carpinteria.
Federal law enforcement first arrived in Camarillo at about 11:00 am, and the situation escalated as a crowd of community members gathered.
The federal agents first deployed tear gas into the crowd early Thursday afternoon.
Ventura County District 5 Supervisor Vianey Lopez told KTLA that as the federal agents used force on the protesters, she saw two government vans, each carrying about 15 people, leaving the farm.
"It is an ongoing situation that is very concerning for the safety of those showing up with anger and disappointment at what is happening to hardworking people in our community," Lopez said.
The immigration enforcement agents were joined by National Guard troops in military vehicles later that afternoon in Camarillo, according to The Guardian, as other federal agents carried out a simultaneous raid in Carpinteria, about 50 miles northwest in Santa Barbara County.
Carpinteria City Council members Julia Mayer and Mónica Solórzano were among a large crowd of community members who gathered to protest the raid, and they told the Santa Barbara Independent that federal officers "pushed us as a group into the ground" and threw at least one smoke grenade, causing Solórzano to injure her arm.
U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), who represents Santa Barbara County and part of Ventura County, released a statement condemning the ICE raid and saying he had been "denied entry and not allowed to pass" when he attempted to "conduct oversight" over the raid targeting his constituents in Carpinteria.
"ICE was conducting a raid using disproportionate displays of force against local farmworkers and our agricultural community," said Carbajal. "There's been a troubling lack of transparency from ICE since the Trump administration started, and I won't stop asking questions on behalf of my constituents."
Carbajal is now one of several Democratic elected officials who have been denied the ability to oversee ICE operations. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) pleaded not guilty last month to forcibly interfering with federal officers—charges that stemmed from her attempt to conduct congressional oversight at an ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey.
"These militarized ICE raids are not how you keep our communities safe. This kind of chaos only traumatizes families and tears communities apart. They are also a gross misuse of limited resources and a betrayal of the values that define us as Americans," said Carbajal, who noted that the identities of those detained in the raids had not been made clear.
In Camarillo, a resident named Judith Ramos told The Guardian that she had learned from her father, who worked in Glass House Farms' tomato fields, that "immigration was outside his job" on Thursday morning.
Ramos, a 22-year-old certified nurse assistant with two younger siblings, said her father told her "to take care of everything" if he was detained by ICE.
She was sprayed with a chemical substance when she arrived at the farm and joined the crowd of protesters, and told The Guardian that she did not know where her father was.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has clashed with President Donald Trump and filed a lawsuit against the administration last month over its federalization of the California National Guard to respond to protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles, posted a video showing children running from the federal agents.
"Trump calls me 'Newscum,'" said the governor, "but he's the real scum."
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