Judge orders Border Patrol to halt illegal stops in the Central Valley, after dozens arrested in raids
A federal judge ordered the U.S. Border Patrol halt illegal stops and warrantless arrests in the Central Valley after agents detained and arrested dozens of farm workers and laborers — including a U.S. Citizen — earlier this year.
The days long raid around Bakersfield sparked outrage after video circulated of agents slashing the tires of a gardener who was a citizen on his way to work and raised fears that tactics could become the become the new norm in the largely agricultural area.
Jennifer Thurston, a U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, said in an 88-page order that evidence presented by ACLU lawyers established 'a pattern and practice' of violating people's constitutional rights when detaining people without reasonable suspicion. And then violating federal law by executing warrantless arrests without determining flight risk.
'The evidence before the Court is that Border Patrol agents under DHS authority engaged in conduct that violated well-established constitutional rights,' she wrote.
Thurston's ruling allows the ACLU to bring a class action lawsuit against the government for the raids. It also requires the Border Patrol to submit detailed documentation of any stops or warrantless arrests in the Central Valley, and show clear guidance and training for agents on the law.
'This sends a powerful message that the raids Border Patrol conducted in and around Kern County in January were illegal,' said Bree Bernwanger, an attorney at ACLU Foundation of Northern California. 'You cannot be pulled over and grabbed on the street because of the color of your skin. Border Patrol is going to be held accountable for those practices and for violating people's rights.'
Government lawyers in a court hearing on Monday did not dispute the accounts of individuals arrested and detained in the raid, but had asked the court to throw out the case, saying it lacked jurisdiction and argued the raid did not constitute systemic behavior.
'Those are disparate examples,' Olga Y. Kuchins, an attorney with the Department of Justice, argued before the court.
But a skeptical Thurston asked for evidence to prove that, in a pointed back and forth during the hearing.
'Two days does not establish a pattern or practice,' she said, suggesting that it was the actions of a few agents.
Thurston then asked the basis for that finding. Kuchins said she had none.
'I'm bound by the evidence that I have,' Thurston concluded at the end of arguments.
The early January enforcement actions involved about 60 agents from El Centro Sector, based in the Imperial Valley, near the U.S. Mexican border.
For 'Operation Return to Sender,' agents traveled about 300 miles to Bakersfield, where the ACLU argues they targeted brown-skinned residents driving along Highway 99, and at local filling stations and a Home Depot — stopping them without establishing probable cause.
At the time, U.S. border agents said the operation was aimed at dismantling transnational criminal organizations. U.S. Border Patrol Chief Agent Gregory K. Bovino posted on social media that agents detained two child rapists and 'other criminals,' and retrieved 36 pounds of narcotics.
But CalMatters later reported that data from the agency showed it had no prior knowledge of criminal or immigration history for 77 of the 78 people arrested.
Wilder Munguia Esquivel, who was arrested at Home Depot according to court documents. He was standing outside the store when 10 unidentified agents in masks aggressively swarmed the day laborers gathered there and began to ask if they had papers and identifications. Esquivel had a pending petition and lived with his family, who are U.S. citizens.
When he stayed silent and walked away, an agent ordered him to turn around and handcuffed him, then yanked his wallet from his back pocket. He was arrested and sent to detention near the border, before being released three days later.
After the lawsuit was filed, Border Patrol issued notice to their agents about how to make a warrantless arrest and identify themselves as agents during arrests. But the ACLU argued the policy was not enough to prevent them from repeating the same behavior.
Last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection executed a raid at a Home Depot in Pomona where officials say 10 people were arrested by agents who arrived in unmarked vehicles.
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Los Angeles Times
31 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Images of unrest, political spin distort the reality on the ground in L.A.
Driverless Waymo vehicles, coated with graffiti and engulfed in flames. Masked protesters, dancing and cavorting around burning American flags. Anonymous figures brazenly blocking streets and shutting down major freeways, raining bottles and rocks on the police, while their compatriots waved Mexican flags. The images flowing out of Los Angeles over nearly a week of protests against federal immigration raids have cast America's second most populous city as a terrifying hellscape, where lawbreakers rule the streets and regular citizens should fear to leave their homes. In the relentless fever loop of online and broadcast video, it does not matter that the vast majority of Los Angeles neighborhoods remain safe and secure. Digital images create their own reality and it's one that President Trump and his supporters have used to condemn L.A. as a place that is 'out of control' and on the brink of total collapse. The images and their true meaning and context have become the subject of a furious debate in the media and among political partisans, centered on the true roots and victims of the protests, which erupted on Friday as the Trump administration moved aggressively to expand its arrests of undocumented immigrants. As the president and his supporters in conservative media tell it, he is the defender of law and order and American values. They cast their opponents as dangerous foreign-born criminals and their feckless enablers in the Democratic Party and mainstream media. The state's political leaders and journalists offer a compelling rebuttal: that Trump touched off several days of protest and disruption with raids that went far beyond targeting criminals, as he previously promised, then escalated the conflict by taking the highly unusual step of sending the National Guard and Marines to Southern California. Reaction to the raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the subsequent turmoil will divide Americans on what have become partisan lines that have become so predictable they are 'calcified,' said Lynn Vavreck, a political science professor at UCLA. 'The parties want to build very different worlds, voters know it, and they know which world they want to live in,' said Vavreck, who has focused on the country's extreme political polarization. 'And because the parties are so evenly divided, and this issue is so personal to so many, the stakes are very high for people.' As a curfew was imposed Tuesday, the sharpest street confrontations appeared to be fading and a national poll suggested Americans have mixed feelings about the events that have dominated the news. The YouGov survey of 4,231 people found that 50% disapprove of the Trump administration's handling of deportations, compared with 39% who approve. Pluralities of those sampled also disagreed with Trump's deployment of the National Guard and U.S. Marines to Southern California. But 45% of those surveyed by YouGov said they disapprove of the protests that began after recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions. Another 36% approved of the protests, with the rest unsure how they feel. Faced with a middling public response to the ICE raids and subsequent protests, Trump continued to use extreme language to exaggerate the magnitude of the public safety threat and to take credit for the reduction in hostilities as the week progressed. In a post on his TruthSocial site, he suggested that, without his military intervention, 'Los Angeles would be burning just like it was burning a number of months ago, with all the houses that were lost. Los Angeles right now would be on fire.' In reality, agitators set multiple spot fires in a few neighborhoods, including downtown Los Angeles and Paramount, but the blazes in recent days were tiny and quickly controlled, in contrast to the massive wildfires that devastated broad swaths of Southern California in January. Trump's hyperbole continued in a fundraising appeal to his supporters Tuesday. In it, he again praised his decision to deploy the National Guard (without the approval of California Gov. Gavin Newsom), concluding: 'If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.' The Republican had assistance in fueling the sense of unease. His colleagues in Congress introduced a resolution to formally condemn the riots. 'Congress steps in amid 'out-of-control' Los Angeles riots as Democrats resist federal help,' Fox News reported on the resolution, being led by Rep. Young Kim of Orange County. A journalist based in New Delhi pronounced, based on unspecified evidence, that Los Angeles 'is descending into a full-blown warzone.' Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas Collins suggested that the harm from the protesters was spreading; announcing in a social media post that a care center for vets in downtown L.A. had been temporarily closed. 'To the violent mobs in Los Angeles rioting in support of illegal immigrants and against the rule of law,' his post on X said, 'your actions are interfering with Veterans' health care.' A chyron running with a Fox News commentary suggested 'Democrats have lost their mind,' as proved by their attempts to downplay the anti-ICE riots. Many Angelenos mocked the claims of a widespread public safety crisis. One person on X posted a picture of a dog out for a walk along a neatly kept sidewalk in a serene neighborhood, with the caption: 'Los Angeles just an absolute warzone, as you can see.' In stark contrast to the photos of Waymo vehicles burning and police cars being pelted with rocks, a video on social media showed a group of protestors line dancing. 'Oh my God! They must be stopped before their peaceful and joy filled dance party spreads to a city near you!' the caption read. 'Please send in the Marines before they start doing the Cha Cha and the Macarena!' And many people noted on social media that Sunday's Pride parade in Hollywood for the LGBTQ+ community went off without incident, as reinforced by multiple videos of dancers and marchers celebrating along a sun-splashed parade route. But other activists and Democrats signaled that they understand how Trump's position can be strengthened if it appears they are condoning the more extreme episodes that emerged along with the protests — police being pelted with bottles, businesses being looted and buildings being defaced with graffiti. On Tuesday, an X post by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass reiterated her earlier admonitions: 'Let me be clear: ANYONE who vandalized Downtown or looted stores does not care about our immigrant communities,' the mayor wrote. 'You will be held accountable.' The activist group Occupy Democrats posted a message online urging protesters to show their disdain for the violence and property damage. 'The moment violence of property damage begins, EVERY OTHER PROTESTER must immediately sit on the floor or the ground in silence, with signs down,' the advisory suggested. 'The media needs to film this. This will reveal paid fake thugs posing as protesters becoming violent. ….The rest of us will demonstrate our non-violent innocence and retain our Constitutional right to peaceful protest.' Craig Silverman, a journalist and cofounder of Indicator, a site that investigates deception on digital platforms, said that reporting on the context and true scope of the protests would have a hard time competing with the visceral images broadcast into Americans' homes. 'It's inevitable that the most extreme and compelling imagery will win the battle for attention on social media and on TV,' Silverman said via email. 'It's particularly challenging to deliver context and facts when social platforms incentivize the most shocking videos and claims, federal and state authorities offer contradictory messages about what's happening.' Dan Schnur, who teaches political science at USC and UC Berkeley, agreed. 'The overwhelming majority of the protesters are peaceful,' Schnur said, 'but they don't do stories on all the planes that land safely at LAX, either.' Though it might be too early to assess the ultimate impact of the L.A. unrest, Schnur suggested that all of the most prominent politicians in the drama might have accomplished their messaging goals: Trump motivated his base and diverted attention from his nasty feud with his former top advisor, Elon Musk, and the lack of progress on peace talks with Russia and Ukraine. Newsom 'effectively unified the state and elevated his national profile' by taking on Trump. And Bass, under tough scrutiny for her handling of the city's wildfire disaster, has also gotten a chance to use Trump as a foil. What was not disputed was that Trump's rapid deployment of the National Guard, without the approval of Newsom, had little precedent. And sending the Marines to L.A. was an even more extreme approach, with experts saying challenges to the deployment would test the limits of Trump's power. The federal Insurrection Act allows the deployment of the military for law enforcement purposes, but only under certain conditions, such as a national emergency. California leaders say Trump acted before a true emergency developed, thereby preempting standard protocols, including the institution of curfews and the mobilization of other local police departments in a true emergency. Even real estate developer Rick Caruso, Bass' opponent in the last election, suggested Trump acted too hastily. 'There is no emergency, widespread threat, or out of control violence in Los Angeles,' Caruso wrote on X Sunday. 'And absolutely no danger that justifies deployment of the National Guard, military, or other federal force to the streets of this or any other Southern California City.' 'We must call for calm in the streets,' Caruso added, 'and deployment of the National Guard may prompt just the opposite.'
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Advocates organizing to support immigrant families
( — Experts and advocates like immigration attorney Andrew Newcomb and First 5 California's Executive Director, Jackie Wong are telling Fox 40 how they are re-doubling efforts to support California immigrant families. Wong says that First 5 California started supporting migrant families fairly recently. 'A few years ago, when there was an Afghan refugee and asylee issue the California Children and Families Commission (First 5) decided to actually get involved in immigration because it was such a prevalent part of our lives,' says Wong 'We want to promote inclusion and really create the safe, stable, nurturing environment that is necessary for Californians to thrive.' Within the last five years they've been building up their resources and network to better support immigrant communities. One of the partners they've been working with to better equip immigrant families is immigration attorney Andrew Newcomb. Newcomb has a decade of experience in immigration law. He currently offers pro bono services to migrant families in the San Jose Mexican consulate while also hosting community workshops with First 5. We sat down with Newcomb for a Q&A for him to answer some of the most pressing questions when it comes to immigration. Here is some of his legal advice. Q: What does someone do if they are detained by ICE agents? A: 'It's best, of course, to not divulge information. You can just save those arguments for a judge that you're hearing, invoke your right to remain silent, and to speak with counsel,' said Newcomb. Q: What can someone working to obtain citizenship do if their family is of mixed status and their child is about to turn 21? A: 'There's a difference between people that came in typically with a visa or people that can benefit from a family petition prior to April 30, 2001. They can usually apply for residency here in the United States, whereas other folks may have to do a longer line which ultimately leads them to a consular office in their country of origin,' said Newcomb. Newcomb also clarified that there are defenses to deportation that are available for people who can prove they've lived in the U.S. for at least ten years and have immediate relatives who have lawful status. Q: Is someone's asylum hearing or application for citizenship different if they entered the country within the last two years? A: 'Yes. So this is basically an issue where they've expanded the definition of what constitutes an 'arriving alien' for the purposes of a process called expedited removal. When someone's in an expedited removal proceeding, they don't necessarily have the right to have their hearing heard before an immigration judge.' Newcomb also adding, 'What we're seeing here is that the government attorneys are attempting to have cases dismissed and then right after the cases are dismissed, provided the person can't prove that they've been in the United States for longer than two years, ICE officers are waiting to detain them and place them in expedited removal proceedings. However, even people whose cases have not been dismissed are also being scooped up by ICE agents, which of course creates an issue of overlapping jurisdiction, which still has to be resolved by the courts.' Q: What if someone is trying to obtain status legally, but fears arrest at one of their court hearings? A: 'It's very important for people that have been here for fewer than two years to take advantage of filing a motion to appear via video or filing a motion to continue your hearing until you're on the outside of those two years. Immigration judges here in Sacramento, just like in the Bay Area, are very receptive to those kinds of motions because at the end of the day, they want to do their jobs as arbiters of fact, and they don't want to have their cases just whisked away from them.' Newcomb says a video court hearing can increase safety while attending asylum proceedings. More resources and services, like the instructional guide to appear in court by video can be found on Newcomb's website, First 5's resources for immigrant and refugee families are available on their website, Other organizations within the Sacramento region include the Sacramento Rapid Response Network. Their 24-hour hotline is (916) 382-0256. Another resource available to migrant families is They feature a collection of videos to educate and empower immigrant communities. An additional resource to help immigrants know their rights is the 'Know Your Rights' red cards. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
Anti-ICE riots reveal the left has learned nothing. It's just handed Trump a gift
Editor's note: The following column first appeared in City Journal. Over the weekend, news of federal enforcement agencies conducting immigration raids sparked massive protests in Los Angeles. The city's mayor, Karen Bass, had denounced the enforcement campaign on X last Friday, accusing the Trump administration of sowing terror and defiantly stating, "We will not stand for this." Also fanning the flames was California's governor, Gavin Newsom, who claimed that the raids were "tearing families apart" and called the immigration arrests "chaotic," "reckless," and "cruel." Progressive groups' denunciations of the raids were even harsher. The ACLU called the enforcement plan an "oppressive and vile paramilitary operation," while a spokesperson for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network referred to the arrests as kidnappings. As word of the campaign spread, the protests quickly devolved into riots. Social media feeds were soon filled with scenes reminiscent of the violent unrest of summer 2020: looting, crowds surrounding burning vehicles, rocks thrown at law-enforcement cars, American flags set aflame, and the 101 freeway shut down. Such violence should have drawn swift and widespread condemnation from both left and right. Instead, prominent Democrats have largely remained silent on the mayhem, reserving their outrage for President Donald Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard to restore order—a move that sparked yet another round of denunciations from the usual suspects. Even some of the president's critics who have called for an end to the violence seem motivated less by the belief that property destruction and assaults on police are wrong, and more by concerns that such unrest could bolster support for immigration enforcement or damage Democrats politically. Gov. Gavin Newsom warned Angelinos not to "fall into the trap that extremists are hoping for." The Cato Institute's Alex Nowrasteh, an open-borders advocate, lamented that "[s]upport for nativism depends on chaos," and argued that "[s]upport for mass deportations would wither without rioting." But who are the extremists in this situation? Surely it's the angry group of rioters setting cars ablaze and hurling rocks at passing police vehicles from highway overpasses. Appalling as the Left's response to the riots has been, it is not surprising. The unrest only reinforces a connection many Americans have already made between progressive causes and the violence too often carried out in their name. The chaos in L.A. follows the deadly and destructive riots that swept cities across the nation in 2020, as well as the more recent demonstrations sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Since that date, pro-Palestinian activists have harassed Jewish students on college and university campuses; shut down streets and transit hubs; set the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania's house on fire; shot and killed two Israeli embassy employees outside the Jewish Museum in D.C.; and hit elderly Jews peacefully marching in support of Israel with Molotov cocktails in Colorado. Democrats face a real political problem. It's not hard to see how this most recent episode of "fiery, but mostly peaceful" protests could boost support for the president's immigration enforcement campaign— especially given that many of those wreaking havoc in L.A. are waving the Mexican flag or burning the flag of the country in which they demand illegal immigrants be allowed to stay. Consider the contrast: on one side, an administration following through on the president's promise to strengthen immigration enforcement, in part to make cities safer; on the other, rioters waving foreign flags and setting streets ablaze. It's hard to imagine a more unsympathetic image for the president's critics. If the Left wants to shed its reputation for siding with arsonists who block city streets, seize campus quads, and attack police, its leaders could start by condemning the lawlessness in Los Angeles and pledging to work with the president to restore order. Their refusal to do so lies at the heart of Donald Trump's political strength—and remains a vivid sign of a lesson still unlearned.
