L.A. County seeks to join civil rights suit against Trump’s immigration enforcement

Los Angeles County, along with the cities of Los Angeles, Culver City, Montebello, Monterey Park, Pasadena, Pico Rivera, Santa Monica and West Hollywood, file to participate as intervenors, ask court to stop illegal tactics by immigration enforcement agents

Los Angeles County filed court documents on Tuesday — alongside the cities of Los Angeles, Culver City, Montebello, Monterey Park, Pasadena, Pico Rivera, Santa Monica and West Hollywood — seeking an end to warrantless seizures and arrests and relief from wide-ranging economic damages caused by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids authorized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  

The County and cities, led by the City of Los Angeles and City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, are each seeking status as “intervenors” in a federal class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel, Immigrant Defenders Law Center and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and others asking the courts to find that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and other key members of the Trump administration have exceeded their statutory authority and violated the U.S. Constitution.

The filing calls for injunctions to end practices in violation of the Fourth and Tenth amendments as well as putting a stop to civil arrests of anyone coming to or from a State courthouse or court proceeding. The intervenors also seek declaratory relief as the court sees fit, citing tens of millions in overtime and other unanticipated expenses.

L.A. County and other jurisdictions detail illegal arrests by armed and masked agents, often without credentials, that use unwarranted force and sometimes result in the detention of U.S. citizens. These Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents violate the Fourth Amendment by making stops without reasonable suspicion and violate federal law by not seeking arrest warrants.

“For more than seventy years prior to June 6, immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area consisted of lawful arrests pursuant to warrants naming identified individuals for specified reasons, and created no or minimal impact on public safety and order,” the filing declares. “In the month since June 6, it has become clear that Defendants have tossed all of that history, and the basic notion of constitutional rights and adherence to law, into the trash bin.”

Jurisdictions are losing tax revenue because businesses are losing customers, public health is threatened because residents who have witnessed brutal arrests are fearful of showing up for clinic visits, and law enforcement resources are strained because of the chaos sown by ICE resulting in $9 million in extra costs to the County to date. The County’s ability to handle child endangerment cases has been undermined as community members mistake social workers with law enforcement backup for immigration officials. ICE agents stalking courthouses to make arrests have limited State courts’ ability to provide equal access to justice. Overall, the chilling effect across the County has been similar to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The Office of County Counsel, with the full support of the Board of Supervisors, is committed to joining the fight to protect the civil rights of all County residents," County Counsel Dawyn Harrison said.