DHS images of “Alligator Alcatraz” discussed at detention facilities
Controversial social media posts at Florida’s so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention facility are upset.
Scripps News
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop immigration agents in Southern California “indiscriminately” arresting people based on racial profiling, and said it was likely that they broke the law to send agents’ “roving patrols.”
The decision was a victory for a group of immigration advocates and five people arrested by immigration agents who sued the Department of Homeland Security over what they called “general and systematic patterns” of brown-skinned people forced to detain and questioned in the Los Angeles area.
In a complaint filed on July 2, the group said the area was “under siege” by masked immigration agents who said they were flooding street corners, bus stops, parking lots, farm sites, day workers’ corners and other locations. They alleged that the agents were forced to detain and chose a target to question them simply because they had brown skin, spoke Spanish or English in accents, and worked as a Day worker, farm worker or other job.
Those arrested were denied access to lawyers and detained in facilities where some “pressed” to accept deportation, the lawsuit allegedly argued.
In her order, Judge Mame Fripon of the Central District of California wrote that the group is likely to succeed in proving that “the federal government is actually conducting roving patrols without reasonable doubt and denying access to lawyers.” Stopping the indiscriminate arrest was “a rather mild request,” she wrote.
Her order grants an emergency request and the lawsuit is underway.
“It doesn’t take federal judges to recognize that the looting bands of Goons that capture masked rifles are violating the rights of ordinary people across Southern California,” said Mohammad Tarja, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, who represents the group that filed the lawsuit.
“We hope that today’s ruling will be a step towards accountability for the terrible lawlessness of the federal government.”
Frimpong “is undermining the will of Americans,” DHS Deputy Chief Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to USA Today. “The brave American men and women are eliminating killers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles and rapists.”
Allegations that agents are arresting them based on their skin color are “disgusting and decisively wrong,” McLaughlin said. “DHS’s executive operations are highly targeted, with executives doing due diligence.”
The Trump administration has stepped up immigrant raids across California since June, focusing on a wide, illegal sweeping for anyone in the country, from people with criminal history.
The crackdown sparked ongoing protests, and Trump sent out the National Guard and Marines to suppress it.
