Immigration Agents 'Abduct And Disappear' Southland Residents, Class-Action Suit Alleges

LOS ANGELES, CA — California residents, workers and advocacy groups Wednesday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, alleging in federal court that the agency is operating a program of "abducting and disappearing" community members using unlawful arrest tactics, then confining detainees in illegal conditions while denying access to attorneys.

The proposed class-action suit brought in Los Angeles federal court by five workers as well as three membership organizations and a legal services provider, alleges that DHS has unconstitutionally arrested and detained people in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the administration of President Donald Trump.

In addition, the complaint claims that those arrested are held in “dungeon-like” conditions without access to lawyers. Some family members have relayed reports of horrific conditions inside the Los Angeles Federal Building, housing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) where inmates are so thirsty that they have been drinking from the toilets.

RELATED: A Day Outside An CA Detention Center Shows Profound Impact Of ICE Raids On Families

"Since June 6th, marauding, masked goons have descended upon Los Angeles, terrorizing our brown communities and tearing up the Constitution in the process," Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney with plaintiffs' representative the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said in a statement. "No matter their status or the color of their skin, everyone is guaranteed Constitutional rights to protect them from illegal stops. We will hold DHS accountable."

Plaintiffs — including the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, and Immigrant Defenders Law Center — seek to represent two classes of individuals, those who have been or will be subjected to unlawful practices of suspicionless stops and warrantless arrests without evaluations of flight risk, according to the complaint.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in an email that “any claims that individuals have been ‘targeted’ by law enforcement because of their skin color are disgusting and categorically FALSE.”

McLaughlin said “enforcement operations are highly targeted, and officers do their due diligence" before making arrests.

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with lawyers and their family members,” she said.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs are seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions stopping further alleged violations of Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.

"These raids have targeted the most vulnerable members of our workforce, essential workers who are the backbone of our local economy," said Armando Gudino, executive director of the LA Center Network. "We cannot allow racial profiling, warrantless arrests, and denial of due process to become the standard operating procedure in our communities."

The complaint centers around three detained immigrants, several immigrant rights groups and two U.S. citizens, one who was held despite showing agents his identification. It comes days after the Trump administration sued Los Angeles to overturn what it called an illegal sanctuary city law.

Between June 1 and 10, DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement data showed 722 arrests in Los Angeles, while a Los Angeles Times analysis found that 69% of those individuals had no criminal conviction, and 58% were never charged with a crime. The analysis also found the arrests were mostly men, with a majority from Latin America.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis on Tuesday also cited data from the DHS that between June 6 and 22, more than 1,600 individuals were detained or deported in Southern California. Solis went on to claim the raids appeared to have targeted established immigrant communities, with agents "racially profiling" residents "based on their appearance and/or the color of their skin."

According to the ACLU of SoCal, since June 6, the federal government has sent immigration agents to the streets, work sites and neighborhoods of Los Angeles and surrounding counties, creating a siege and immigration dragnet over the region.

The suit alleges that "one of the clearest patterns that have emerged in the raids in Southern California has been stops and interrogations ... on the basis of apparent race and ethnicity."

Mark Rosenbaum, senior special counsel for strategic litigation at Public Counsel, which is also representing the plaintiffs, alleges that members of the Southern California community have been "whisked away and disappeared into a grossly overcrowded dungeon-like facility lacking food, medical care, basic hygiene, and beds."

Rosenbaum contends that DHS is operating a "draconian crackdown" to "eviscerate basic rights to due process and to shield from public view the horrifying ways ICE and Border Patrol agents treat citizens and residents who have been stigmatized by our government as violent criminals based on skin color alone."

He added, "This lawsuit is in part about putting an end to that big lie."

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.