ICE agents used racial slurs during Los Angeles crackdown, court files show

Agents accused in lawsuit of using anti-immigrant slurs and denigrating undocumented Mexicans

ICE agents deployed last summer to the Los Angeles area referred to the subjects of their immigration operations with racial slurs, 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”, invoking an anti-immigrant slur, which the US border patrol has previously warned against .

In a different string of messages sent on 2 July 2025, an agent wrote: “Some of these people are stupid. Why would you post on social media that you’re wet,” using the abbreviated version of a slur long used to denigrate undocumented Mexicans who cross into the US by the Rio Grande, a river stretching from Colorado into the Gulf of Mexico.

“Tonks” and “wet” also appeared in other correspondence.

The slurs were made public on Monday in a motion filed for a case five men brought against the Trump administration in June 2025, alleging that the stop-and-arrest practices of ICE agents during the Los Angeles raids were unlawful.

Lawyers for the men have requested that a federal judge bar any further detention stops based on race or socioeconomic status.

In June 2025, three of the men filing the lawsuit were arrested while waiting at a bus stop to be picked up for work. A fourth plaintiff had his arm twisted and was pushed against a gate during questioning by masked immigration agents, even as he explained he was a US citizen.

Maya Joachin, deputy director of immigrants’ rights at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said in a press release the records evidenced “a pattern of racial profiling”.

She said: “Immigration officers are flagrantly violating the law by detaining people without justification and often primarily because of the color of their skin.”

Angel Santiago Tafolla, an Anaheim resident and US citizen who is not among the plaintiffs, said in a court declaration provided in the Monday filing that ICE agents swept through a car wash he worked at in Orange county.

He was handcuffed and put in a van before they realized he was an American citizen. “Other co-workers who are light-skinned also ran, but they were not chased. I feel that I was chased because I am a darker-skinned Latino,” Tafolla said.

In a December deposition, an ICE officer who led the bus stop operation suggested individuals loitering for work were flagged as possibly undocumented individuals. He described their appearance as “older Hispanic males”.

The raids were met with strong blowback from city and state officials. Tensions further flared when Donald Trump sent the national guard to Los Angeles, citing a need to “liberate” the city from a “migrant invasion”, as protests erupted against ICE’s presence.

“Our agents are focused on protecting the American people – not entertaining performative outrage,” a spokesperson for the homeland security department said in a statement to CalMatters regarding the new court filings.

The DHS did not immediately return the Guardian’s request for comment.