The masked, unidentified agents “systematically” corner brown-skinned people at the Power Show across Southern California, tackling those trying to leave, arresting them without cause, then placing them on “dungeon-like” conditions without access to lawyers, federal lawsuits allege.
The lawsuit filed early Wednesday against the Trump administration described the area as “under siege” in agents, military-style clothing and “an indiscriminate migrant raid that floods street corners, bus stops, parking lots, agricultural sites and day workers’ corners.” The lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California, seeks to block the Trump administration’s “continued patterns and practices of disregarding constitutional and federal law” during an immigration attack in the LA area.
“These people are ramping around town and wanting to end that particular practice by simply taking people at random,” said Mohammad Tarjar, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in Southern California.
The complaints focus on three detained immigrants, several immigration rights groups and two U.S. citizens. A few days after the Trump administration urged Los Angeles to overturn what they called the “illegal” Sanctuary Urban Act, and the region has come to centre in a pitching battle with the administration over a massive deportation plan.
Homeland Security spokesman Tricia McLaughlin previously said that “anything of skin color and decisively wrong makes an individual ‘target’ by law enforcement.
“DHS’s executive operations are highly targeted and executives do due diligence,” she said. “We know who is targeting us in advance. If we meet the individuals that are being arrested, our law enforcement agencies are trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine their status and removability.”
However, the lawsuit says people are afraid that they are at risk just because of their appearance. A DHS representative could not be immediately contacted for comment.
Jorge Hernandez Villamontes, one of the two US citizens in the lawsuit, worked in a car wash on June 18th. He claims that for about a decade, immigration agents who had not identified themselves arrived and began questioning people about their identity and status of immigrants. Hernandez Viramontes said he provided the ID, saying he was a double citizen of the US and Mexico.
However, the agent explained that “his ID wasn’t enough and that he didn’t have a passport so they had taken him.” According to the lawsuit, the agent put him in the car, put him in the car, and then confirmed that his citizenship had brought him back around 20 minutes later, “but he was deeply concerned, not before his brother called his wife.”
They dropped him in the car wash without apologizing. Shortly afterwards, the car wash was attacked again.
He and others fear that their “Latin look and accents” will make them a future target, the lawsuit says.
“The administration has told us that these actions are motivated by a desire to make the streets safer,” said Mark Rosenbaum, a public advisory lawyer. “But that’s showing now, and this is what we’re trying to show in our case, who is their real target and what is it. [their] The true intention is to terrorize and tear the families of nannies, car wash workers and farm workers in our community. ”
Between June 6 and 22, immigration enforcement teams arrested 1,618 immigrants for deportation in the surrounding areas of Los Angeles and Southern California, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The arrest includes controversial roving patrols and chase. Data running through June 10th suggests that the majority of arrested people have no criminal convictions.
The lawyers argue that “patterns of illegal activities” are “a predictable outcome of orders from top officials to agents and officers.” In May, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller reportedly instructed top immigrants and customs enforcement officers to go beyond their target list and arrest agents for trying to raise daily arrests at Home Depot or 7-Eleven convenience stores to 3,000.
The lawsuit points out that the administration has dismantled internal accountability mechanisms and restraints that govern the actions of immigration agents and officers, and has shut down several watchdogs.
After the immigrants were taken into custody, the lawsuit alleges that it is located in a “dungeon-like” short-term processing center and ice basement holding area in downtown LA, known as the “B-18.” The lawyer described the terms as “deplorable unconstitutional,” claiming that those arrested were deprived of access to the lawyer.
The lawyer said it had failed to provide basic essentials such as food, water, proper sanitation and medical care. The detainees were allegedly exposed to overcrowding and lacked adequate sleep accommodation.
“Under these conditions, some of the arrested people are under pressure to accept voluntary departures,” the lawsuit states. “The government recognizes that its actions are unconstitutional and against the training of its officers, but this system will be purposefully sustained as it allows it to avoid public accountability and ultimately gain limited bed space in local long-term detention facilities.
The lawsuit stems from an existing lawsuit filed June 20 by an immigration lawyer in Pasadena.
Stacy Tolchin’s three clients were greeted at a bus stop and surrounded by armed agents.
“If you stop people and ask questions later, you’re going to get everyone, and the law is really clear. You can’t do that. It’s illegal,” Tarja said. “I’m not saying that the government cannot enforce immigration laws. It’s not that the government cannot investigate whether someone is in or not.”
But he said, it must be done legally. “What’s going on here is grossly illegal.”
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