The Use of Illegal Tactics by ICE and CBP

Last Friday I wrote about the dangers of the expansion of federal law enforcement departments under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security. The recently signed One Big Beautiful Bill law contains $178 billion in immigration enforcement funding over the next decade, most of which will go to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. As I noted in that post, the law enforcement agencies under DHS have much more lax recruitment standards and follow considerably more lenient policies than the law enforcement departments contained within the Department of Justice, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As a result, abuses are much more likely to be committed by the DHS agencies, such as ICE and Customs and Border Protection. Recently, there has been considerable attention focused on the tactics employed by those agencies, with federal judges stepping in to halt some practices.

One look at the tactics employed by ICE and CBP was provided by Bellingcat, working in partnership with Evident Media and CalMatters. The authors reviewed over 100 videos of immigration arrests in Los Angeles, primarily obtained through social media, over an approximately 2-week period in June. Based on their analysis, the authors were able to note trends in tactics used by ICE and CBP. In some cases, the law enforcement agencies could not be identified due to a lack of uniforms or identification among those conducting arrests. The conclusions of this article will not be a surprise to anyone who has been following the immigration arrests in Los Angeles, or indeed anywhere else in the country.

Despite claims by DHS that immigration raids are targeted, the video footage tended to show that often public locations that might be frequented by Latinos were targeted by wide sweeps in which individuals were detained based on physical appearance. This was not the first time that Bellingcat had conducted this kind of investigation and not the first time the group had come to the same conclusions. In a previous article, Bellingcat documented a raid in Bakersfield, California, that involved over 300 members of the El Centro division of the CBP. As the article said, "The raids – which saw officers operating at gas stations, a Latino shopping market and during traffic stops – shocked many in Bakersfield." Moreover, "CBP documents obtained by Evident and CalMatters appear to reveal that there was no prior knowledge of criminal or immigration history for 77 of the 78 people arrested." The evidence of illegal tactics being used by CBP was such that a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction preventing warrantless immigration stops within the Eastern District of California. The judge in that case warned government officials that "You just can’t walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Give me your papers.’"

Now, Bellingcat has documented the same tactics being used in Los Angeles, which is in California’s Central District. Once again, agents from the El Centro Border Patrol unit are involved. In fact, the unit's head, Gregory Bovino, is in charge of the Los Angeles operation. As Bellingcat noted, "A striking number of videos showed people being arrested at what appeared to be their places of work. These included arrests at car washes, food stands and swap meets." In addition, "incidents were recorded outside or close to 17 different Home Depots". Home Depots seem to be so heavily targeted that I have to assume that Lowe's has become the preferred home improvement store of anyone who might be Latino-looking.

Bellingcat also found other consistencies in ICE and CBP behavior that should be apparent to anyone who has been paying attention. This is the lack of uniforms or other identification, unmarked cars, and masks covering the officers' faces. It is common for groups of heavily armed individuals to emerge from unmarked vehicles and start grabbing every Latino-appearing person in the vicinity. The officers are generally masked and without visible identification. As such, there is nothing to distinguish them from armed kidnappers. As the article says, "Because it is often unclear who these agents are, many videos show bystanders asking agents for identification, a warrant, a badge number or who they are with."

In addition, immigration authorities have engaged in large-scale operations that appear to be primarily public relations exercises rather than attempts to arrest targeted individuals. For instance:

One notable instance was the June 16 raid at the Sante Fe Springs Swap Meet that reportedly saw dozens of agents, many of whom were heavily armed, raid a popular swap meet where families were in attendance. Border Patrol filmed this raid and posted a video on their Instagram account. The video shows a number of officers carrying weapons, wearing protective gear, preparing for the raid and walking through the swap meet. A sign which reads ‘Family Fun Live Music Shopping’ can be seen in the video. The raid reportedly resulted in the arrest of two individuals.

On July 7, hundreds of officers, some mounted on horses and others using armored vehicles, stormed Los Angeles' MacArthur Park. The Los Angeles Times described it as a "show of force akin to a Hollywood movie." However, whatever its public relations benefits might be, the raid was ineffective when it came to arresting migrants. The Times reported that it is "unclear if anyone was arrested during the sweep."

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also documented the illegal behavior by federal agencies in a complaint made in federal court. The complaint alleged that:

Masked federal agents, sometimes dressed in military-style clothing, have conducted indiscriminate immigration operations, flooding street corners, bus stops, parking lots, agricultural sites, day laborer corners, and other places, setting up checkpoints, and entering businesses, interrogating residents as they are working, looking for work, or otherwise trying to go about their daily lives, and taking people away.

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.

On Friday, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting "roving patrols" that indiscriminately round up people and the denial to those individuals of access to lawyers. The judge also restricted law enforcement from relying solely on race or ethnicity, language, presence at a particular location, or type of work to establish reasonable suspicion for a stop. In other words, authorities could no longer profile. Somewhat ironically, the federal government did not disagree that roving patrols, profiling, and prevention of legal representation should be prohibited. The government simply denied, despite all evidence to the contrary, that its agents had been engaging in such activities.

So far, federal agents have been prohibited from engaging in indiscriminate arrests based on profiling in two California federal court districts. In the case of Los Angeles, this appears to have had a real impact on ICE and CBP activities. As reporter Wendy Fry noted, "A day after the TRO was issued, the number of ICE sightings in California dropped significantly from the peak of the 36-day crackdown in L.A." Sightings of ICE were 621 on June 13, but had dropped to 80 by July 12. While DHS officials vowed that their operations would continue in Los Angeles, this data suggests that they won't be of the same scale. Chances are that ICE and CBP will simply move on to another city where their tactics have not yet been enjoined. Moreover, with the benefit of the additional funding, we are likely to see these operations becoming increasingly common throughout the country as DHS will be able to target multiple locations simultaneously.