Immigration agents used racial slurs referring to Latinos in text messages, video obtained by ACLU

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred Immigration agents who descended on Los Angeles last summer referred to Latinos using slurs like “tonk” and “wet,” according to body camera footage and text messages detailed in a court filing asking a federal judge to bar agents from making stops based on racial profiling.After a June raid at Home Depot in Hollywood, body camera footage captured an agent saying: “There was a guy, I’m pretty sure he’s wet he was just sitting in that minivan.” A text chain revealed an agent referring to “tonks everywhere selling food” — using a word reportedly derived from the sound an agent’s utility flashlight makes when hitting a migrant’s head.In a video, an agent said, “Yeah, just plug us in wherever you see some tonks and we’ll jump out.”Body camera footage and forensically recovered texts, which provide a window into the mindset of agents who conducted raids throughout the L.A.

area, were detailed in a 42-page motion for a preliminary injunction filed on Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel, and other groups and private attorneys seeking to bar an “ongoing campaign of suspicionless and discriminatory detentive stops” in the Central District of California.Mayra Joachín, an attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, said the language agents used underscores that “what’s driving the way that immigration operations are being conducted now is a racist sentiment.”“What we’ve seen is only a fragment of what information there might be, because not all of the government records from phones have been turned over,” Joachín said.“It’s also possible that there are many other phone records that have not been turned over and could have even more detrimental evidence for the agency.”The evidence, pertaining to both Immigration and Customs Enforcement a...