A new legal battle against immigration authorities put the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents under scrutiny, after body camera videos and text messages came to light in which they allegedly used racial slurs to refer to Latino people during operations in the Los Angeles area.
The information, reported by the Los Angeles Times, is part of a motion filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), along with Public Counsel and other lawyers, who are seeking a federal judge to prohibit arrests based on racial profiling. According to the lawsuit, evidence shows a pattern of discriminatory behavior during raids in Southern California.
Videos and messages reinforce the accusations
Among the evidence are body camera recordings in which an agent refers to a man using a derogatory insult against immigrants. In addition, text message conversations show offensive expressions and comments about patrols to locate people in areas frequented by Latino workers.
For Mayra Joachín, a lawyer at the ACLU of Southern California, the content of these records shows that immigration operations are marked by racial prejudices.
“What drives the way immigration operations are currently carried out is racist sentiment,” said the litigator.
Lawsuit challenges racial profiling
The plaintiffs maintain that the operational strategy changed in 2025, when, according to internal documents cited in the motion, ICE began to favor mass operations in public places, such as Home Depot stores, car washes and bus stops, instead of focusing on individualized investigations.
The lawsuit claims that in numerous cases, officers arrested people other than the initial alleged targets and that the decisions were motivated primarily by physical appearance or perceived ethnicity. One agent even described the profile he was looking for simply as an “older Hispanic man,” according to the court file.
The lawyers also claim that several cell phones used during the operations have not yet been handed over for forensic analysis, so they believe there could be more evidence about the agents' behavior during the raids.
The case remains in the hands of federal judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, who must decide whether to grant new restrictions on immigration operations while the judicial process continues.
