AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
A federal judge in Los Angeles says there's overwhelming evidence immigration agents roving the streets of Southern California have been violating the Constitution. They've been racially profiling, she found, detaining people for deportation just because of what they look like. NPR's Adrian Florido joins us now from Los Angeles. And note - we will hear a racial slur in this conversation. Adrian, thanks for being with us.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Hi, Ayesha. Thanks.
RASCOE: Tell us what this federal court has found.
FLORIDO: Well, the judge, Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, said it very simply. She said that ICE and Border Patrol agents have, quote, "engaged in an unlawful, officially sanctioned practice of detaining individuals solely based upon their appearance as Latino or Latino and working class" (ph). The judge said that she was convinced by mountains of evidence that the ACLU and other civil rights groups presented in court to prove that agents out rounding people up have been racially profiling, and she ordered ICE and Border Patrol to stop its agents from doing that.
RASCOE: Adrian, this is the second time this judge has issued this ruling. Last year, the Supreme Court tossed out her first one. So why is she doing it again?
FLORIDO: Well, last year's order, Ayesha, was a temporary one based on limited evidence, and the Supreme Court tossed it out without offering a reason. The only hint as to why came from a concurrence that Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote. He wrote that immigration agents can consider race, along with other factors, to suspect that someone is in the country illegally. But that ruling did not end the underlying lawsuit here. And so since then, the ACLU has, in this case, gathered a lot of evidence to convince the LA judge that immigration agents have been using race, not as one factor, but as the only reason to stop people. This is Mohammad Tajsar, one of the ACLU's lawyers in the case.
MOHAMMAD TAJSAR: They know nothing about people other than the fact that they're brown and they look like they're working class. And based on those two broad demographic characteristics, armed goons descend on them and stop them and kidnap them.
RASCOE: Tell me more about this evidence that convinced the judge that that's true.
FLORIDO: Well, the government handed this evidence over after the judge in the lawsuit ordered it to. And there were text messages in which agents used racial slurs. Lawyers got to depose immigration agents. They also filed declarations from dozens of Latinos who were detained by immigration agents, including U.S. citizens wrongly detained. There was also body cam footage, Ayesha. Like this video, you can hear two agents who've just raided a Home Depot parking lot.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED AGENT #1: I checked one guy's ID.
UNIDENTIFIED AGENT #2: Did you?
UNIDENTIFIED AGENT #1: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED AGENT #2: There's a guy. I'm pretty sure he's wet. He was just sitting in that minivan.
FLORIDO: He says he's pretty sure that a man he saw in a minivan was wet, and that is short for wetback, a racial slur for Latino immigrants. In terms of enforcement, all this judge's preliminary injunction this week does is tell agents to stop detaining people just because they look Latino, and it gives the lawyers a tool to ask for sanctions if the government keeps doing this.
RASCOE: This ruling only applies in seven counties in Southern California, including Los Angeles, but could it have ramifications elsewhere in the country?
FLORIDO: Well, the ACLU's attorney thinks that, yes, that the ripple effects could be national because LA is not the only place where immigration agents are accused of racial profiling. This is the ACLU's Mohammad Tajsar again.
TAJSAR: It will have an impact not just on how the government conducts its operations throughout the country, but also on how communities respond and prepare their own cases and are themselves becoming more vigilant.
FLORIDO: The Department of Homeland Security, Ayesha, has always denied that its agents racially profile. We asked for a comment on this ruling and did not hear back. The agency did, though, file an appeal this week, and this case is likely to end up again before the Supreme Court.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Adrian Florido. Thank you so much for joining us.
FLORIDO: Thank you, Ayesha. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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