Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents deployed to the Los Angeles area last summer used racial slurs to refer to the subjects of their immigration operations, according to newly released court documents.
On 4 July 2025, an unidentified agent wrote in a text chain, “btw tonks everywhere selling food for the 4th festivities in long beach right now”, using a slur previously warned against by the US border patrol. In another message from 2 July 2025, an agent wrote: “Some of these people are stupid. Why would you post on social media that you’re wet,” using a derogatory term for undocumented Mexicans crossing the Rio Grande.
The slurs were made public on Monday in a motion filed for a case brought by five men against the Trump administration in June 2025. The men allege that the stop-and-arrest practices of ICE agents during the Los Angeles raids were unlawful. Their lawyers have requested a federal judge bar further detention stops based on race or socioeconomic status.
One plaintiff, a US citizen, had his arm twisted and was pushed against a gate during questioning by masked agents. Another, Angel Santiago Tafolla, a US citizen not among the plaintiffs, said in a court declaration that ICE agents swept through his workplace, handcuffed him and put him in a van before realising he was an American citizen. He said lighter-skinned co-workers were not chased.
Mayra Joachin, deputy director of immigrants’ rights at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the records evidenced “a pattern of racial profiling” and that officers were “detaining people without justification and often primarily because of the colour of their skin”. An ICE officer leading the bus stop operation described those loitering for work as “older Hispanic males”.
A spokesperson for the homeland security department said: “Our agents are focused on protecting the American people – not entertaining performative outrage.”
