US Attorneys General Coalition Urges Court to Halt "Unconstitutional" ICE Raids

NEW YORK, New York – New York Attorney General, Letitia James, has joined a coalition of 17 other attorneys general in supporting the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s use of “unlawful immigration enforcement tactics” on immigrants in Los Angeles, California.

In an amicus brief filed on Monday, James and the coalition urge the court to grant a temporary restraining order halting the raids, “which have upended the community, harmed local economies, and undermined public trust in law enforcement.”

James told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) in Los Angeles and nationwide “we are seeing immigration enforcement officers deploy dystopian tactics that are deeply harmful.

“No one should fear being questioned, detained, or deported by unidentified masked agents while taking their child to school, going to work, or attending church.”

She said these mass raids are tearing families apart, threatening public safety, and turning once-lively neighborhoods into ghost towns

“Federal agents are sowing fear in entire communities, which is why we are urging the court to intervene and stop these unconstitutional raids at once,”  James added.

In the brief, the coalition details how Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts have “shattered the rhythms of everyday life” in Los Angeles.

In recent months, the coalition said masked agents, conducting unannounced and unmarked operations in neighborhoods, churches, schools, and local businesses, “have left people afraid to leave their homes.

“Residents, including US citizens, have been unlawfully detained, questioned, and harassed, often without any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Local businesses have closed and farmers markets have shut down due to fear of enforcement.

“Hospitals and health clinics report soaring appointment cancellation rates, which presents alarming concerns for public health. Students are skipping school and graduation ceremonies, days that are supposed to be among the most joyous of their lives.”

The attorneys general say that houses of worship have also seen a dramatic decline in attendance, highlighting  what they describe as “the long history of discriminatory and militarized immigration enforcement campaigns in California, including ‘Operation Wetback,’ a 1954 mass deportation campaign that took its name from an ethnic slur, as well as the La Placita raids during the Great Depression.”

The attorneys general note that at the time, Mexican farmworkers were indiscriminately blamed for job shortages and shrinking public benefits, and, ultimately, the campaign resulted in the deportation of nearly two million Mexican Americans, more than half of whom were US citizens, without due process.

“Families were separated, and many children never again saw their parents. Historians and scholars have widely condemned these discriminatory raids as inhumane terror campaigns,” they argue, drawing parallels between those “shameful chapters of American history” and the current actions under the Trump administration, “which seemingly prioritize maximizing the quantity of arrests over the right to due process”.

They highlight the president’s past remarks, in which he praised “Operation Wetback” as an enforcement model and hailed the Eisenhower administration for setting the record for deportations, a record he said his administration would break.

The attorneys general emphasize that the administration’s recent immigration raids, including in Los Angeles, “appear to bear many of the same hallmarks as the earlier mass deportation efforts that are now shameful chapters of American history”.

They say numerous incidents have been reported in which plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents driving unmarked vehicles were mistaken for criminals, leading to false reports of kidnappings and assaults.

In their filing, the attorneys general say while the ACLU’s lawsuit is specifically focused on ICE enforcement tactics in Los Angeles, the Trump administration has been “engaging in widespread raids in cities throughout the country, including New York.

“Arrests at immigration courts in Manhattan and on farms upstate have contributed to a culture of fear for many immigrant New Yorkers,” they say,  asking the court to “immediately intervene and stop the unlawful immigration enforcement tactics in Los Angeles”.