The Department of Homeland Security reportedly is retraining more than 900 California-based Border Patrol agents after immigration sweeps in Kern County in January.
According to a report by CalMatters, a federal lawsuit against the agencies by the American Civil Liberties Union claimed that agents targeted people solely for looking Latino or like farmworkers, violating Fourth Amendment protections against arbitrary arrest.
The leader of the Border Patrol’s El Centro sector, which conducted the raids, has maintained that his agents targeted specific people with criminal and deportation histories.
The agents are reported to have targeted locations frequented by day laborers and farmworkers, such as Home Depot and routes to local orchards and farms. CalMatters reports that witnesses told them people were stopped indiscriminately and asked for their immigration papers.
A CalMatters investigation, based on U.S. Customs and Border Protection records, found that the agency had no criminal or immigration history on 77 of the 78 people arrested in what was called “Operation Return to Sender.”
The ACLU lawsuit was filed on behalf of the United Farm Workers and those detained. It asks a judge to issue an injunction to prevent the Border Patrol from any similar sweeps in California in the future.
In court filings, DHS argued the court doesn’t have jurisdiction to review Border Patrol detentions — and says the ACLU’s claims “have, in any event, been resolved” by new guidelines and training."
(Photo Getty Images)
Farm workers labor in the fields south of Bakersfield, in Kern County.Photo: AFP via Getty Images