Bodycam footage reveals federal immigration officers using slurs during an operation in Los Angeles County, according to evidence in a federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The footage shows a federal agent using the derogatory term ‘wet’ to describe a man observed in a minivan. This term, derived from ‘wetback,’ has been historically used to demean Latin American immigrants.
Another video shows an agent referring to a person as a ‘tonk,’ a term allegedly based on the sound a flashlight makes when striking a migrant’s head. These terms have been banned by Border Patrol supervisors in the past. The ACLU acquired these videos as part of a lawsuit claiming racial profiling by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents.
We now know that the only evidence that those agents used to stop an individual was to racially profile and to identify people on the street who appear to look Latino and working class,said ACLU attorney Mayra Joachin.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denies accusations of racial targeting. However, civil rights groups argue that these raids, aimed at supporting former President Trump’s deportation policies, indiscriminately targeted people based on race and occupation.
Last year, a federal judge ordered ICE and Border Patrol to cease detaining individuals based on race. The Supreme Court overturned this ruling, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh commenting that agents could consider ‘apparent ethnicity’ among other factors to base suspicion of illegal status.
The lawsuit seeks to prove that race remains the predominant factor used by agents during immigration stops. Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong ordered DHS to provide bodycam footage, text messages, and other evidence for review.
The DHS insists operations are targeted and claim agents know their targets in advance. However, texts between agents show derogatory language and a focus on specific ethnicities. In one video, an agent refers to a U.S. citizen as a ‘tonk,’ illustrating the issue of misidentification based on appearance.
The ACLU argues that agents should require specific, articulable facts before detaining individuals, in accordance with constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. They are pushing for explicit court orders to prevent race from being used as a factor in forming reasonable suspicions.
Additionally, the ACLU wants agents to document the basis for their suspicions when detaining individuals, aiming to ensure legal compliance and protect against racial profiling.