Lawsuit says ICE agents racial profile during immigration crackdown in California
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A new federal lawsuit out of Southern California challenges the way the Trump Administration carries out immigration enforcement.
One of the allegations is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are stopping and arresting people based on race and where they work.
The court filing said day laborer pickup locations, like Home Depots, have become central sites of immigration enforcement.
Some of the situations described in the lawsuit sound familiar to what ABC13 has reported locally.
Just last month, ABC13 reported on a man taken by ICE at a Home Depot in Houston after reporting a crime that ultimately helped officers find a convicted felon.
The California lawsuit also claimed ICE makes arrests without identification of authority or reason. It said agents often show up without any visible badges showing what agency they are with and leaving people in the dark about who they are interacting with or why they are under arrest.
In July, unmarked vehicles with ICE agents were involved in the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston.
The Department of Homeland Security claimed Araujo tried to run over an agent and the officer fired his weapon. However, Araujo's family disputes those claims and said if the father of three knew the men in the unmarked vehicles were ICE officers, he would have fully complied.
The lawsuit asks the court to freeze the Trump Administration's immigration actions immediately.
ABC13 reached out to DHS for its response to the allegations in this lawsuit, but has not heard back.
