From the ACLU’s Complaint Against Mein Trumpf's Ethnic Cleansing Campaign in Militarily Occupied Los Angeles

Openly Racist Fascism on Display in Beautiful Southern California

Dear readers, do read…the ACLU’s chilling and detailed descriptions (below) of the racist and authoritarian conduct of Fascist US president Donald Trump’s 21st Century Fugitive Slave Catchers in militarily occupied Los Angeles…

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Case No.: 2:25-cv-05605-MEMF-SP

FIRST AMENDED PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS AND COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF CLASS ACTION

Hon. Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong

Filed July 2, 2025

Read full document/complaint here:

https://www.aclusocal.org/sites/default/files/vasquez_perdomo_v_noem_-_first_amended_petition_and_complaint.pdf

‘This lawsuit seeks to enjoin Defendants’ ongoing pattern and practice of flouting the Constitution and federal law in connection with ongoing immigration raids in the Los Angeles area. 2. Since early June, this District has been under siege. 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. 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.

Further, apparently to accommodate the sharp rise in arrests, the government has resorted to keeping individuals at what is supposed to be a short-term processing center and ICE basement holding area in downtown Los Angeles, known as “B-18,” often for days. In these dungeon-like facilities, conditions are deplorable and unconstitutional. The government has also unlawfully deprived those arrested of access to counsel. Under such conditions, some of those arrested are pressured into accepting voluntary departure.

Federal immigration enforcement is constrained by law. But since the federal government began its mass immigration enforcement operations in this District on June 6, 2025, all of these legal requirements have given way to one overriding consideration: “numbers, pure numbers. Quantity over quality”[1]

In late May, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security imposed a quota of 3,000 immigration-related arrests per day—with “consequences for not hitting arrest targets.”[2] In order to reach this target, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller directed high-level officials to change their approach to stops and arrests in the field. Agents and officers, according to him, should no longer conduct targeted operations based on investigations. Instead, they should “just go out there and arrest [unauthorized noncitizens]” by rounding up people in public spaces like “Home Depot” and “7-Eleven” convenience stores.[3]

This comprehensive scheme has been guised as a crackdown on the “worst of the worst.”[4] But the preponderance of individuals stopped and arrested in the raids have not been targeted in any meaningful sense of the word at all, except on the basis of their skin color and occupation.[5] Those who have borne the brunt of Defendants’ heavy-handed pattern of unlawful conduct include day laborers, car wash workers, farm workers, street vendors, service workers, caregivers and others who form the lifeblood of communities across Southern California. Over a thousand residents in the District have already been impacted, including a shocking (though hardly surprising) number of U.S. citizens and individuals lawfully present in the country.

…The manner in which the foregoing raids have been conducted bears no hallmarks of reasonable suspicion: there are no indicia that agents had any specific articulable facts sufficient to justify a seizure. Instead, those who appear to be non-white have been categorically stopped, sometimes without even being asked for identification….

…For example, on the morning of June 6, 2025, a local resident, R.H.D., and his brother-in-law were helping their relative paint his home in Orange County. Both are Latino. As they were working outside, a group of ICE and FBI agents approached and began questioning them. This questioning was not voluntary. The agents surrounded the man and prevented him from walking away before they knew who he was. There were several people at nearby residences who appeared Caucasian and were also working outside in their yards, but on information and belief, they were not questioned or detained. [44] At a Home Depot in Santa Ana on June 10, 2025, Junior Ortega recounted that agents arrived in unmarked vehicles and began detaining individuals at gunpoint.[38] An agent approached him, pointed a gun and then demanded to see his identification. He complied, fearing for his safety. After inspecting the identification, the agent released Junior without ever providing a reason for the stop. [45] At the Downey Memorial Christian Church on June 11, 2025, a witness recalled that “the gentleman who they took was dark-skinned and only spoke Spanish. They don’t care if you have papers, as long as you look like what they want you to look like, they’ll take you.”[39] No reason for the stop was provided. [46] At a military-style raid at the Santa Fe Springs swap meet on June 14, 2025, 60 heavily armed agents were present.[40] One witness reported that “if you looked Hispanic in any way, they just took you.”[41] Another witness described seeing agents pull people from the bathrooms and demand identification from everyone they encountered.[42 47]. It is illegal for Defendants to stop anyone—U.S. citizens or not— without reasonable suspicion. But predictably, in addition to noncitizens, Defendants’ practices have led to numerous U.S. citizens who work, reside, or just happen to be in neighborhoods with large numbers of people of color also getting swept up….

…In a typical encounter, agents and officers approach suddenly and in large numbers. Typically dressed in military style or SWAT clothing, heavily armed with weapons displayed, and masked, their vests may display only a generic “POLICE” patch (if they display anything at all)….This grossly disproportionate display of force is enough to make any person fear for their safety and feel compelled to comply. Moreover, agents typically position themselves around individuals, aggressively engage them, and/or bark commands, making it nearly impossible for individuals to decline to answer their questions. [53]. When individuals have tried to avoid an encounter with agents and officers, they have been chased and pushed to the ground, sometimes even beaten, and then taken away. Such seizures look less like lawful arrests and more like brazen, midday kidnappings. [54]. These incidents have been widely reported in the news, further contributing to the climate of intimidation and fear.’

…For example, in Westchester on June 8, 2025, several armed agents in camouflage uniforms and helmets tackled a fruit vendor on a corner, pinning him to the ground.47 A witness recalled: “They had him pressed down on the ground. They had weapons drawn so no one could get near to help him.”48 56. At a hand car wash in Culver City also on June 8, 2025, agents dressed in either camouflaged fatigues or plainclothes arrived in unmarked vehicles.49 A witness, waiting for her car to be washed, recalled seeing “an agent carrying an assault rifle . . . chasing after a customer, pursuing him across a four-lane road,” while other customers screamed “Don’t shoot!”50 The federal agent caught the man and took him into custody.51 57. At a Home Depot in Santa Ana on June 9, 2025, a U.S. asylum seeker from Peru was detained and later released upon producing documents. He recalls that “[the agents] arrived in an aggressive manner,” pointing guns, as if to “rob them.”52 58. At the Downey Memorial Christian Church on June 11, 2025, three SUVs with tinted windows pulled up to the church.53 Six agents with neck gaiters, hats, and sunglasses, rushed out of unmarked vehicles. Armed, some carrying assault rifles, they detained a man in the parking lot.54 The agents refused to identify which agency they worked for and did not provide a warrant.55 When a senior pastor of the church tried to communicate in Spanish with the man being detained, an agent pointed a gun at her.56 59. Recently, in Santa Ana, agents were observed on video repeatedly beating Narciso Barranco, father to three sons who have served in the U.S. Marines, on the head and neck, even though Barranco was already on the ground.57 60. Two days later at a Home Depot in Ladera Heights, eight heavily armed masked men surrounded a young woman street vendor clinging to a tree. After they had arrested the woman and were driving away, they threw three tear gas canisters at the small group of community members bearing witness to the arrest. The men refused to identify themselves.58 61. When people refuse to answer questions and try to leave, agents respond with violence. ….’

Yesterday Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued a ten-day restraining order temporarily blocking the fascist Trump administration from conducting broad raids and kidnappings in Los Angeles that target people solely based on their race, location, language or type of work. The judge ordered Mein Trumpf’s sado-fascist Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other Trump officials to give detainees access to legal representatives.