On July 2, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its sub-agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE):

“Since early June, this District [Los Angeles] has been under siege.

“Masked federal agents, sometimes dressed in military-style clothing, have conducted indiscriminate immigration operations, flooding street corners, bus stops, parking lots, agricultural sites, day laborer corners, and other places, setting up checkpoints, and entering businesses, interrogating residents as they are working, looking for work, or otherwise trying to go about their daily lives, and taking people away. 

“The raids in this District follow a common, systematic pattern. Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from.

“If they hesitate, attempt to leave, or do not answer the questions to the satisfaction of the agents, they are detained, sometimes tackled, handcuffed, and/or taken into custody. In these interactions, agents typically have no prior information about the individual and no warrant of any kind.

“If agents make an arrest, contrary to federal law, they do not make any determination of whether a person poses a risk of flight before a warrant can be obtained. Also contrary to federal law, the agents do not identify themselves or explain why the individual is being arrested.  

“Further, apparently to accommodate the sharp rise in arrests, the government has resorted to keeping individuals at what is supposed to be a short term processing center and ICE basement holding area in downtown Los Angeles, known as “B-18,” often for days.

“In these dungeon-like facilities, conditions are deplorable and unconstitutional. The government has also unlawfully deprived those arrested of access to counsel. Under such conditions, some of those arrested are pressured into accepting voluntary departure.”

Contrast this behavior with the way Mafia “Boss of all Bosses” John Gotti was arrested on December 11, 1990, when FBI agents and NYPD detectives raided the Ravenite Social Club in Manhattan.

They had arrest warrants for Gotti, boss of the Gambino Mafia Family, and his two lieutenants: Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, his underboss, or second-in-command, and Frankie Locascio, his Consigliere, or adviser.

Moreover, there was no mistaking that these were legitimate law enforcement agents: They wore jackets emblazoned with “FBI” or “NYPD,” showed their credentials, and didn’t hide their faces behind masks.

John Gotti

And when the three Mafiosi were taken to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, in Manhattan, New York City, they were allowed to call their attorneys.

Every nation has the right to control its borders and decide who has the right to enter—and under what conditions. But nations that pride themselves on adhering to the law should be held accountable with their law enforcement agencies flagrantly and routinely violate it. 

On July 11, Thomas Homan, the designated “Border Czar” for Donald Trump’s second presidency, said during an interview on Fox News: “People need to understand ICE officers and Border Patrol don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them.

“They just need the totality of the circumstances. They just got through our observation, you know, get articulable facts based on their location, their occupation, their physical appearance, their actions.” 

Thomas Homan

This contradicted a statement made in court that week by Thomas Giles, the assistant director of ICE, that the standard for making arrests “is we need to determine probable cause and determine alienage.” 

“And there you have it,” wrote Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who on June 12 was roughed up by security forces while trying to ask Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem questions at a press event.

“Under the Trump Administration, ICE and Border Patrol are being empowered to stop and question you based solely on how you look. No probable cause. No real reason. Just your ‘physical appearance.’ That’s not justice—it’s profiling.” 

Even natural-born American citizens—such as Kenny Laynez—now risk arrest and detention by overzealous ICE agents.

According to the lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the reason for this is: “The government is aware that its actions are unconstitutional and contrary to officers’ training, but deliberately persists because this system allows it to coerce removals, avoid public accountability, and ultimately—given the limited bed space at longer-term detention facilities in the area—keep arrest numbers high.

“Federal immigration enforcement is constrained by law. But since the federal government began its mass immigration enforcement operations in [Los Angeles] on June 6, 2025, all of these legal requirements have given way to one overriding consideration: numbers, pure numbers. Quantity over quality.

”In late May, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security imposed a quota of 3,000 immigration-related arrests per day—with ‘consequences for not hitting arrest targets.’ In order to reach this target, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller directed high-level officials to change their approach to stops and arrests in the field.

“Agents and officers, according to him, should no longer conduct targeted operations based on investigations. Instead, they should ‘just go out there and arrest [unauthorized noncitizens] by rounding up people in public spaces like ‘Home Depot’ and ‘7-Eleven’ convenience stores.”