01.04.2024
7 min
985
Learn the truth about immigration raids in Los Angeles, which affect hundreds of residents every day. Our story examines the actions of CBP, ICE, and other law enforcement agencies: masks, guns, warrantless raids. We show how the raids affect immigrants, local businesses, and human rights organizations. We document the violations, government responses, court injunctions, and the community’s fight for safety.
Masked gunmen jumped out of unmarked vehicles. Latinos being picked up from work or waiting for a bus. Street vendors were roughly tackled and held down.
Since early June, Los Angeles has seen frequent and aggressive immigration raids, arresting people suspected of illegal immigration. Some are quickly deported.
Between June 6 and 22 alone, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reports that it arrested 1,618 people for deportation from Los Angeles and surrounding areas in Southern California. That’s an average of about 95 people per day, and the arrests and deportations have continued since then.
These numbers represent an increase from previous months and appear to be in line with reports of apparent White House directives to increase immigration-related arrests.
We have collected video of just over 100 incidents since June 6, highlighting observations and what appear to be recurring patterns and tactics used by officers.
The video shows officers from agencies such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which operate under the auspices of DHS, arresting people in public places, at workplaces, and outside residential buildings. In some cases, it was unclear which agency the officers were with due to the lack of clear identification.
In other cases, officers are seen using significant force to detain people. In most cases, officers cover their faces, concealing their identities. Unmarked vehicles were also used repeatedly.
The raids are similar to incidents previously investigated by CalMatters and Evident Media in California. Earlier this year, Border Patrol agents from the El Centro Sector traveled more than 300 miles from the southern U.S. border to the city of Bakersfield to participate in what they said were targeted raids to apprehend immigrants with “criminal records.”
However, the extent to which the mission was targeted has been the subject of considerable tension, with human rights and labor groups arguing that it was far from the case. Of the 78 people arrested, only one was designated as requiring prior deportation.
In April, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction following the Bakersfield raids that bars the Border Patrol from conducting warrantless raids in the Eastern District of California, saying “you just can’t walk up to people with dark skin and say, ‘Give me your ID.’”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other industry and human rights groups last week filed a motion to impose a similar ban in the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles.
The head of the El Centro unit, Gregory Bovino, is now in charge of operations throughout Los Angeles. Agents from his El Centro unit have also appeared on video of raids in Los Angeles neighborhoods. Bovino even appeared during a raid involving hundreds of officers in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles on July 7.
To be clear, it is impossible to know exactly what happened in every incident recorded in our dataset. The vast majority of videos offer only brief snapshots of what happened, as most raids relied on an element of surprise. As a result, witnesses often did not begin recording until after the raids had begun. Similarly, many of the recorded raids took place in public places, such as parking lots or shopping malls. Others occurred in private homes, but incidents are more likely to occur in places where a larger number of people are likely to be present, such as on busy streets. This is likely reflected in the data.
Judging by the number of people arrested in Los Angeles over the past few weeks, the videos also capture only a fraction of the total incidents that actually occurred. Nevertheless, the available videos indicate a few trends that may provide clues to the tactics employed by agents across the city.
From Pasadena to Long Beach, from Playa Vista to Baldwin Park, incidents were reported across Los Angeles. Some even extended beyond Los Angeles County, with raids reported in Oxnard, Santa Ana and Fontana.
With billions in new funding coming to ICE operations, some believe the Los Angeles incident could be just the beginning of a broader immigration crackdown across the country. President Donald Trump also appeared to hint at this in a June 16 post on Truth Social, saying he wanted to expand the detention and deportation efforts to other cities, such as Chicago and New York.
A staggering number of videos have shown people being arrested, presumably at their workplaces. These include arrests at car washes, grocery stores, and stock exchanges.
In one incident on June 22 at the Bubble Bath Hand Car Wash in Torrance, numerous agents could be seen swarming the facility and approaching blue-shirted employees. A bystander told local broadcaster ABC7 Eyewitness News that she managed to prevent the arrest of one of the employees by advising him not to answer questions. However, other agents were treated roughly, some of whom appeared to be wearing ballistic armor and armed.
Emmanuel Karim, the manager of Bubble Bath Hand Car Wash, who can be seen in the video angrily berating the agents who asked them, “What are you doing here?”, said in a phone call that the officers did not provide warrants or identification.
He had previously told media outlets that two of his employees were kidnapped during the raid.
In total, our dataset documented 12 raids that were likely targeted specifically at car washes, including one in which the same car wash was arrested twice. However, the industry group CLEAN Carwash Worker Center documented a much larger number of such raids. As of July 4, they reported that they had information about raids at at least 55 car washes, with some of them having been raided multiple times throughout June. CLEAN said it had documented at least 96 arrests, including both car wash workers and customers.
Another video from June 8 in Westchester shows a street vendor being tackled to the ground and surrounded by agents with guns drawn outside his stall.
In another incident on June 22, street food vendor Selina Ramirez was holding onto a tree when federal agents pulled her over and arrested her outside a Home Depot in Ladera Heights. A witness told ABC7 Eyewitness News that the officers did not show their identification or serve a warrant. While some were wearing Border Patrol IDs, there were also plainclothes officers. All appeared to be wearing masks.
The nature of these arrests has led some to allege that officers racially profile workers they encounter, such as at street food stands, and also target businesses they believe have a high percentage of Hispanic workers, such as car washes.
The lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) describes a “systematic pattern” in which “dark-skinned individuals are suddenly and forcefully approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents and forced to answer questions about who they are and where they are from.”
The ACLU lawsuit says that the practice, in which agents fail to identify themselves or explain the reason for the arrest, “violates federal law.”
The Department of Homeland Security was asked about the claims in the ACLU lawsuit, as well as the incidents at car washes and street vendors in Westchester and Ladera Heights. The Department of Homeland Security did not comment on the specific incidents in Westchester and Ladera Heights. It also did not respond to the owner’s claims that agents failed to provide a warrant or ID during the raid on Bubble Bath Hand Carwash in Torrance.
But in an email sent after this article was first published, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Tricia McLaughlin responded to the details of the ACLU lawsuit, saying, “DHS targets have nothing to do with the color of a person’s skin. What makes a person a target is whether or not they are in the United States illegally. Such vile slander is designed to demonize and discredit our brave law enforcement agency, ICE.”
McLaughlin added, “DHS law enforcement operations are targeted and officers conduct due diligence. We know in advance who we are targeting. If and when we encounter individuals who are being arrested, our law enforcement officers are trained to ask a series of clearly worded questions to determine status and potential for removal.”
On June 16, a video surfaced online showing a bystander questioning two ICE agents handcuffing and arresting a man in the Hacienda Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles County. The man identified himself as Leo Torres, and when the bystander asked if the agents had a warrant for his arrest, they replied, “This is a public place, we don’t need a warrant.”
Torres was apprehended near what appears to be a shopping mall. Our dataset showed 25 incidents at such locations. But most often, the raids were captured on video near stores of a single brand.
In total, the incidents were recorded at or near 17 different Home Depot stores—places where day laborers typically pick up supplies for their jobs or pick up work themselves.
For example, a video taken on June 19 shows an agent in a Border Patrol uniform chasing a man in the parking lot of a Home Depot store in Burbank.
In another incident on June 22, a man was pinned to the ground in the parking lot of a Home Depot store in Garden City. The video begins with price tags for items being sold in the same font used in Home Depot stores.
In another incident on June 9, video footage uploaded from multiple angles shows officers chasing and questioning a man outside a Home Depot in Huntington Park. The video also shows other officers chasing those nearby.
While the vast majority of those arrested in the collected videos could not be identified, the raids on Home Depots bear striking similarities to the Bakersfield operation conducted by the Border Patrol’s El Centro earlier this year. Eight of the more than 50 videos were allegedly filmed in Home Depot parking lots.
Determining who, or indeed which agency, is conducting a given raid in the collected videos is not an easy task. Many agents wear masks or cover their faces, concealing their identities.
Because it is often unclear who the agents are, many videos show bystanders asking the agents for their ID, warrant, badge number, or who they are working with. In one video, from June 23 at a Home Depot in Inglewood, a bystander filming a man being pulled over asks the officer for his badge number. The officer briefly flashes his badge before jumping into the backseat of a speeding car.
Similarly, many videos show officers in plainclothes rather than uniforms, making it difficult to determine which agency they belong to.
Some warn that the frequent use of masks and concealment of identities makes it easier for scammers or impostors to pose as federal officers or law enforcement officers to commit crimes. There have been several incidents in the past month, including in Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles. However, Acting ICE Director Ted Lyons has said that officers are concealing their identities to protect themselves and their families from persecution.
A new bill, called the “Undercover Police Ban Act,” would require local, state and federal officers to cover their faces during operations in California.
Unmarked vehicles are also routinely seen in videos of police officers making arrests. We were able to identify several instances where the same unmarked vehicles appeared in separate videos in different parts of the city. The vehicles could be identified by their license plates.
Several videos also showed other vehicles used by officers, including Border Patrol vehicles with unique identification numbers.
In response to questions sent via email after this article was first published, a DHS spokesperson said: “When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement officers, wearing masks to protect themselves from the pursuit of highly skilled gangs such as Tren de Aragua and MS-13, criminal gangs, murderers, and rapists.”
Several videos in the dataset appear to show agents using significant force. A number of the incidents involved heavily armed or aggressive officers. Agents can be seen carrying rifles, pistols, and wearing military-style clothing, from camouflage uniforms to helmets and ballistic vests.
One notable case was the June 16 raid on the Sante Fe Springs Stock Exchange, in which dozens of agents, many of whom were heavily armed, reportedly raided the popular exchange floor where families were present. The Border Patrol captured the raid on video and posted the video to its Instagram account. The video shows several officers, armed and in protective gear, preparing for the raid and walking through the exchange floor. In the video, a sign can be seen reading “Family Fun, Live Music Shopping.” Two people were reportedly arrested as a result of the raid. Businesses located there later complained that the raids had put people off returning.
In another incident on June 29, video footage showed the arrest of two men on a street in Santa Ana. The officers appeared to use batons on both men as they lay on the ground. A witness said the officers used pepper spray after one of the men was already on the ground.
Federal officials later told local news outlet KTLA that one of the men arrested was a Mexican national who was in the United States illegally, although they did not say how the officers first came into contact with the two men or whether they were known to law enforcement. The same officials also told KTLA that the officers were attacked by a “violent mob” protesting the arrests before all the suspects were arrested.
In other incidents, officers pointed their guns at a man who was trying to flee in a car and another who was trying to take a picture of a federal agent’s license plate. The data set also shows one man bleeding from the head after officers smashed his car window and dragged him from the vehicle.
On June 24, during an ICE raid in Los Angeles’s Fashion District, agents from multiple agencies attacked a man named Luis Ippolito, pushing him to the curb. The video shows one officer grabbing his neck while several agents pounced on him and appeared to be hitting the back of his legs. Moments later, he began convulsing on the ground.
Ippolito is a U.S. citizen and had apparently been filming arrests of street vendors in the area. According to the LA Times, officers ordered Ippolito to leave the scene. When he didn’t, the officer sprayed him with a substance, the LA Times reported. The video shows Ippolito waving his hand in response, but it’s unclear whether his hand touched the officer. He is charged with assault for allegedly punching the agent before being tackled and knocked to the ground. Ippolito’s family later said he did not intentionally touch the agent and that he was blinded by what they said was pepper spray that hit him in the face. They said it was a natural reaction to not being able to see after using pepper spray. The LA Times reported that Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Trisha McLaughlin said the actions of Ippolito and another U.S. citizen “prevented ICE law enforcement from arresting the targeted illegal alien they were shooting at.”
There have been numerous reports of ICE officers detaining U.S. citizens. In one incident on June 12, a U.S. citizen was seen on video being chased and detained by Border Patrol agents before being eventually released. However, before leaving, one of the officers asked, “Why did you run?”
While it is unclear whether the sole reason they were trying to detain the individual was because he ran, this seems consistent with a promotional video posted on the Customs and Border Protection YouTube page in which an officer can be heard saying, “If they run, so do we.”
When asked whether the officers’ use of force was always proportionate, or whether there were instances where someone went too far, the Department of Homeland Security responded after this article was first published. McLaughlin said agents are trained to “use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve a situation while prioritizing the safety of the public and our officers.”
She added, “Resisting arrest puts those being arrested, agents, and the community at risk. Law enforcement is currently experiencing a nearly 700 percent increase in assaults during law enforcement operations. But that won’t stop [Customs and Border Patrol]—we will continue to enforce the law and protect American communities.”
