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Multiple immigration sweeps reported across Los Angeles, with a tense standoff/protest downtown; SEIU union leader arrested
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L.A. public defenders are on a win streak as Trump’s Justice Department charges activists
- L.A. public defenders have secured several acquittals defending activists charged with assaulting federal officers during immigration protests.
- The Justice Department has filed assault and other charges against more than 100 people since June in connection with immigration operations.
- Defense lawyers contend these cases should never have been brought, with weak evidence that juries consistently reject, prompting legal experts to question the prosecution strategy.
Fewer than 1% of federal criminal defendants were acquitted throughout the U.S. in fiscal year 2024, according to the latest available statistics from the federal judiciary. The majority of federal cases result in guilty pleas and never go to trial. Prosecutors often pursue the most serious charges available, seeking leverage to negotiate plea agreements with defendants who may plead guilty to avoid the risk of a lengthy prison sentence.
Only five criminal defendants were acquitted in the Central District of California in fiscal year 2024, according to statistics from the federal judiciary.
But in L.A. and across the country, some defendants charged in connection with protests and immigration enforcement operations have opted to go to trial. There have been acquittals in Chicago, Seattle and D.C., including the widely ridiculed case of a man charged with assault for throwing a Subway sandwich at a Border Patrol agent.
As of this month, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A., 23 people have pleaded guilty to assault, impeding and other charges and another 23 have had charges dismissed. About 40 defendants are due to go to trial this year.
[For the trials that have completed, the public defenders are now an undefeated 6-0. Some of these have been mentioned upthread, but...]
Brayan Ramos-Brito’s case was the first to go to trial in September. U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino testified that he witnessed Ramos-Brito strike a Border Patrol agent during a June protest.
...Alexandria Augustine, accused of assaulting a federal officer with an umbrella. An investigator for the office testified that she had to use a special scale to weigh the umbrella, because it was less than a pound.
...a client charged with stealing government property by towing an immigration agent’s vehicle.
During the [most recent] trial, Abel and Nickell introduced videos that their team had tracked down, showing the federal officer seemingly walking into Lopez’s [expensive professional Sony a7 IV] camera and then shoving it back toward him. They told jurors that the officer’s “excessive force” resulted in a large cut on Lopez’s hand that drew blood. The defense lawyers acknowledged that Lopez pushed the officer back but argued it was in self-defense.
In her closing argument, Abel said Lopez was the one attacked, not the other way around. The officer, she said, “could not stand being photographed, could not stand when someone did not immediately bend to his will.”
Assistant U.S. Atty. Rahul Hari told the jury that Lopez “did not act in reasonable self-defense.”
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Mexican father of 3 U.S. Marines in California gets deportation reprieve
A federal immigration judge has ended the deportation case against Narciso Barranco, the Mexican father of three U.S. Marines whose arrest on video showing masked federal agents pinning him down and punching him outside an IHOP in Southern California went viral last year.Rigo Hernandez, 44, told The Times that the judge terminated his stepfather’s case during a virtual hearing on Jan. 28.
At the time [of the arrest], the Department of Homeland Security denied Barranco’s shoulder had been dislocated and blasted him on social media, accusing him of assaulting federal law enforcement with the weed whacker.
But ... no charges were ever filed against him.
During his father’s hearing last month, Hernandez felt anxious, he said, as the judge listened to arguments from attorneys representing his father and the Department of Homeland Security. But he started to feel slightly better as the judge’s questions started to lean in favor of his father.
Since the ruling, Hernandez said, his father no longer has to wear an ankle monitor or check in with federal immigration officials. The ruling also means he’ll be able to get his bond money back.
“He still has to settle his legal status,” he said. “But this clears the way for that.”
...his father’s attorney petitioned for him to be put into a federal program [Parole in Place] that allows immediate family members of U.S. citizens or military service members to temporarily remain in the country and apply for a work visa.
Barranco’s attorney, Lisa Ramirez, said it was the Parole in Place program that ultimately helped convince the judge that his case should be dropped.
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Two women convicted of stalking ICE agent during Los Angeles immigration protests
Two Los Angeles protesters were convicted late Friday of stalking a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent after they followed him to his Baldwin Park home.
In a split verdict that followed a weeklong trial, Ashleigh Brown and Cynthia Raygoza were each found guilty of one count of stalking and acquitted of one count of conspiring to publish protected personal information about a federal employee. A third defendant, Sandra Samane, was acquitted of both counts.
While following ICE and Border Patrol agents to enforcement sites has become a common protest tactic in L.A. and other cities, the case seemed to be the first instance of protesters confronting a federal agent at their home.
[ICE guy] Huitzilin exited his vehicle holding up his own camera phone alongside his wife, and the two groups got into a heated exchange, according to video played in court. [They called him and his wife bad words]
Attorneys for Brown, Raygoza and Samane spent the week arguing that the government's case was blown out of proportion. The defendants did not know who Huitzilin was, or have any intention of identifying his home address or harassing him. Attorneys also said it was Huitzilin who initiated the confrontation on Chelsfield Street by approaching the women.
Nicolaysen and other attorneys had argued at trial the stalking charge was impossible to prove since the federal penal code requires a defendant to engage in a pattern of behavior to be guilty of the crime. The women only interacted with the agent on one day, during an incident that lasted 90 minutes, he said.
“That's not stalking. This case is far from over," he said, vowing to appeal.
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They probably will. This is why we need a new law to address these situations. Following them to their house should be prohibited. The current stalking laws typically need multiple events for stalking. A simple misdemeanor offense of following federal employees around and to their residence would be enough.
None of us would appreciate people following us to our home under these circumstances. Say someone had a real problem with you at your work and showed up there to yell and scream at you. Then later saw you out with your family and decided to follow you to your house. It would most certainly be unsettling and disturbing. What legitimate purpose could that person have to go out of their way to follow you to your house, but to harass you in some fashion?
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DaisyDay
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If you don't know where someone lives, how would you know they are going to their home? It also seems a bit one sided as they are allowed to follow us to our homes.
Again, you would have to know where they live in order to know you were following them there.
And yet, federales and many LEOs are allowed to follow us to our home under these circumstances. Worse than that, they can stop us and demand our ids in many states.
Me personally or me as a government worker? Depending on my job, they may have the right to protest my work when I am out in public.
Unsettling and disturbing is not illegal until/unless it becomes a pattern of harassment. I don't know that this is more disturbing than the mass surveillance already in place that already knows where I live, what I buy, who I see, etc. because it is all available in databases for a fee or to curry favor (avoid disfavor) with government entities.
You would have to ask that person as it really would depend. And are you really not aware that young people, particularly young women, get this all the time?
It's weird that you always want to make this personal as though that would change anything.
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Trump Administration is (un)appealing.
Deportation case appeal leaves OC father of U.S. Marines faced with uncertainty
Narciso Barranco, the Orange County gardener whose deportation case drew national attention last year, is once again facing uncertainty as federal immigration officials appeal a judge’s ruling that had previously dismissed his case.Barranco, a father of five, says he rarely leaves his home, only stepping out for doctor’s appointments and always accompanied by his wife or children.
Last month, a judge dismissed Barranco’s deportation case after finding he provided evidence that he was the father of three U.S. Marine sons, making him eligible to seek lawful status, a decision that initially brought relief to the family, but that relief was short-lived.
Federal immigration officials have appealed the ruling.
Barranco’s attorney, Lisa Ramirez, said part of the appeal argued that he did not qualify for permanent residency because his petition was still pending and that his parole-in-place application was submitted to the wrong agency.
His attorney said a hearing on the appeal could take years to be scheduled and says they are prepared for when it happens. In the meantime, Barranco has no protection against deportation.
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DHS attorney said agents in Los Angeles should have ‘started hitting’ protesters, emails show
A lead attorney for the Department of Homeland Security suggested that federal agents should have “just started hitting the rioters and arresting everyone that couldn’t get away” during an anti-ICE protest in Los Angeles last June, internal emails show.The note was in an email chain obtained by the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight through the Freedom of Information Act and shared exclusively with The Times.
The final email in the thread was from Joseph Mazzara, then-acting DHS general counsel, and he appears to be referring to an incident in which protesters tried to breach a protective line at a federal building.
Referring to law enforcement as “they,” he continued: “They should have, when they brought the line in, just started hitting the rioters and arresting everyone that couldn’t get away from them. No one likes being hit by a stick, and people tend to run when that starts happening in earnest.”
Mazzara was later appointed deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Politico reported that Mazzara is among 10 staffers who followed former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to the State Department after she was fired this month from DHS and given a new role as special envoy for the Shield of the Americas.
Mazzara’s comment in the email thread with other Homeland Security attorneys was given to American Oversight with a watermark showing the agency had intended to withhold it. American Oversight also received a version of the documents with that statement redacted.
“They reveal a level of hostility toward protesters that is deeply at odds with the government’s obligation to protect civil liberties — and there’s no FOIA exemption that justifies hiding them,” [American Oversight person] said.
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And more recently, from the extra innings after yesterday's No Kings protests in LA. (This has the look to me of a civil disobedience arrest. But there were some more arrests after a failure to disperse order was given by police to a couple hundred people causing trouble near the federal ICE facility. LA Times reporters were removed by police from the area.)
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Trump says he wants to send federalized troops to L.A., San Francisco
When President Trump ordered immigration raids in Los Angeles in June, only a handful of those arrested were violent criminals. The sweeps split families, cost businesses millions of dollars and drove many undocumented residents into hiding.Activists protested the Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, prompting the president to deploy thousands of federal troops in what he called a security operation. A federal judge called it unlawful and said the deployment caused “greater harm” to the city.
Now, Trump wants a redo.
The president framed the deployments as both a crime-fighting and immigration enforcement tool, saying that federal authorities can remove people from cities in ways local officials cannot.
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‘Amateur hour at the U.S. attorney’s office’: L.A. prosecutors face more losses in protest cases
- Federal prosecutors in L.A. have lost every assault on a federal officer case they’ve brought to trial against immigration protesters.
- [others have pleaded guilty]
- A federal judge criticized the U.S. attorney’s office as “amateur hour” after prosecutors failed to disclose evidence during an assault trial.
- The office has charged more than 100 people since June, alleging assaults on agents or interference with immigration enforcement.
“You’ve got to be ready for prime time and you’re not,” said Birotte, a former U.S. attorney himself.
Three floors up, around 20 minutes later, in courtroom 10A, prosecutors sat expressionless awaiting the verdict for Luis Hipolito, who was also on trial for assault on a federal officer after punching an ICE officer in the face during an operation last summer.
Hipolito did not deny striking the officer. Unlike in past trials where jurors acquitted due to a lack of video footage, there were videos posted on social media that captured the punch. He said he believed the officers, who did not identify themselves, were bounty hunters trying to kidnap a woman and he acted in self-defense after he was pepper sprayed and elbowed.
Hipolito testified that he was dropping his sister off at work when he heard a girl screaming “I’m a U.S. citizen.” He thought she was 17 or 18 because she was so short. He said unidentified men twice her size and wearing masks were picking her up. He said he saw on social media that bounty hunters were getting people and said he believed Velez was possibly getting kidnapped.
[Velez herself is a US Citizen and was charged with assault, but those charges were dropped.]
"There was the U.S. citizen who said she no longer feels safe after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer slammed her to the ground in downtown Los Angeles and later accused her of assault ... Prosecutors initially charged Velez with assault on a federal officer, alleging that Velez, who is 4 feet 11 inches, stood in the path of an ICE officer with her arms extended, striking his head and chest when they collided. Soon after, prosecutors dismissed the case."
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US court dismisses Trump administration lawsuit over Los Angeles immigration policy
A California court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump's administration against Los Angeles over a city ordinance limiting its cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Olguin rejected the administration's argument that the city's policy was unconstitutional.
Los Angeles city attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto said in a statement on Monday that the ruling "reinforces the well-established principle that local governments have the authority to decide how to use their personnel and resources."
The lawsuit came weeks after Trump deployed troops to quell protests in Los Angeles against deportation operations.
Federal judges have dismissed administration lawsuits brought against the cities of Boston and Chicago.
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First an update on the SEIU president in the OP
"My actions, however infuriating to the federal agents, were protected by the First Amendment of our Constitution," Huerta said. "For that, I was tackled, pepper-sprayed, and detained."
Huerta said his case was dropped because it was bogus.
"Our motions exposed a case that never should have been brought because it violated my constitutional rights," Huerta said.
Court documents showed that Huerta and prosecutors signed off on a set of facts pertaining to the incident. It states that before Huerta's arrest, he positioned himself in a driveway where the operation was unfolding, encouraged others to do the same and that this resulted in an agent being unable to enter a gate.
"Huerta has agreed to resolve his case through a diversion agreement, admitting to the charged facts and agreeing to comply with conditions," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.
Federal charges against California labor leader David Huerta dropped
Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California, was arrested on June 6 and charged with felony conspiracy, although the charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor for obstruction, resistance, or opposition of a federal officer."My actions, however infuriating to the federal agents, were protected by the First Amendment of our Constitution," Huerta said. "For that, I was tackled, pepper-sprayed, and detained."
Huerta said his case was dropped because it was bogus.
"Our motions exposed a case that never should have been brought because it violated my constitutional rights," Huerta said.
Court documents showed that Huerta and prosecutors signed off on a set of facts pertaining to the incident. It states that before Huerta's arrest, he positioned himself in a driveway where the operation was unfolding, encouraged others to do the same and that this resulted in an agent being unable to enter a gate.
"Huerta has agreed to resolve his case through a diversion agreement, admitting to the charged facts and agreeing to comply with conditions," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.
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Second...
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.”
Guidance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2019 stated that “the term tonk is not appropriate” because it is “considered a derogatory term and CBP does not condone its use,” the Huffington Post reported.
The evidence, pertaining to both Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents, was turned over in expedited discovery ordered by U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong after the Supreme Court stayed her previous order barring stops based solely on race or ethnicity, language, location or employment, either alone or in combination.
The evidence shows that “race is the predominant characteristic driving Defendants’ stops, and that Defendants’ ongoing stops — including of U.S. citizens — are neither brief nor unintrusive,” the motion states.
The plaintiffs asked Frimpong to block agents from “relying on a person’s perceived Latino ethnicity to conduct detentive stops, except in connection with a known target description.”
For years, including during Trump’s first term, ICE compiled target lists that would include the daily routines of the people they sought to arrest. Those operations focused on individualized investigations of specific people.
That changed last year, attorneys said in the motion, citing an email from ICE headquarters in late May 2025 instructing field offices to begin arresting “collaterals,” or nontargets, en masse. Soon after, plaintiffs allege, agents “embarked on a coordinated campaign of suspicionless stops based on demographic profiling.”
After Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order last year, the government “represented to this Court and the Supreme Court that these operations were based on “intelligence,” the motion states.
“But discovery revealed that Defendants’ paltry ‘intelligence’ was manufactured to justify operations at public access locations Defendants were already intent on raiding,” according to the motion. The attorneys cited a deposition from a veteran ICE agent who was assigned to participate on the operations and said they were not “designed in good faith” to arrest the identified targets.
According to the motion, the government sent intelligence-gathering teams to Home Depots and car washes where “they ran checks until they identified an arbitrary number—typically a small number—of possibly unlawfully present individuals.”
“Defendants then selected a day to raid the location, without regard to whether the previously identified ‘targets’ were present,” the motion states. “Unsurprisingly, Defendants frequently did not arrest their supposed ‘targets,’ even as they arrested numerous others.”
Attorneys referenced an agent who was captured saying “[G]et out and start grabbing people” right before detaining a lawful permanent resident.
Immigration agents used racial slurs referring to Latinos in text messages, video obtained by ACLU
- New court filings detail immigration agents in Los Angeles referring to potential targets using racial slurs.
- Civil rights groups are asking a federal judge to bar an “ongoing campaign of suspicionless and discriminatory” stops in the Central District of California.
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.”
Guidance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2019 stated that “the term tonk is not appropriate” because it is “considered a derogatory term and CBP does not condone its use,” the Huffington Post reported.
The evidence, pertaining to both Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents, was turned over in expedited discovery ordered by U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong after the Supreme Court stayed her previous order barring stops based solely on race or ethnicity, language, location or employment, either alone or in combination.
The evidence shows that “race is the predominant characteristic driving Defendants’ stops, and that Defendants’ ongoing stops — including of U.S. citizens — are neither brief nor unintrusive,” the motion states.
The plaintiffs asked Frimpong to block agents from “relying on a person’s perceived Latino ethnicity to conduct detentive stops, except in connection with a known target description.”
For years, including during Trump’s first term, ICE compiled target lists that would include the daily routines of the people they sought to arrest. Those operations focused on individualized investigations of specific people.
That changed last year, attorneys said in the motion, citing an email from ICE headquarters in late May 2025 instructing field offices to begin arresting “collaterals,” or nontargets, en masse. Soon after, plaintiffs allege, agents “embarked on a coordinated campaign of suspicionless stops based on demographic profiling.”
After Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order last year, the government “represented to this Court and the Supreme Court that these operations were based on “intelligence,” the motion states.
“But discovery revealed that Defendants’ paltry ‘intelligence’ was manufactured to justify operations at public access locations Defendants were already intent on raiding,” according to the motion. The attorneys cited a deposition from a veteran ICE agent who was assigned to participate on the operations and said they were not “designed in good faith” to arrest the identified targets.
According to the motion, the government sent intelligence-gathering teams to Home Depots and car washes where “they ran checks until they identified an arbitrary number—typically a small number—of possibly unlawfully present individuals.”
“Defendants then selected a day to raid the location, without regard to whether the previously identified ‘targets’ were present,” the motion states. “Unsurprisingly, Defendants frequently did not arrest their supposed ‘targets,’ even as they arrested numerous others.”
Attorneys referenced an agent who was captured saying “[G]et out and start grabbing people” right before detaining a lawful permanent resident.
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