Court documents made public this week show that immigration agents in Los Angeles used racial slurs in text messages to describe the people they were targeting during street raids in mid-2025. The messages came to light through a civil rights lawsuit — a legal case where someone sues the government for violating their rights — against the Trump administration. They give a rare look at how officers talked privately while carrying out raids that have drawn heavy legal and political criticism.

The Los Angeles Times confirmed on July 27, 2026, that immigration agents used racial slurs when referring to Latinos during Los Angeles operations, using the same court records (Los Angeles Times). The Guardian published more details the next day from the case file (The Guardian). News from the States also confirmed what the messages said (News from the States).

The slurs appear in a group text-message chain among agents working in the field. On July 2, 2025, one agent wrote: "Some of these people are stupid. Why would you post on social media that you're wet," using a short version of a slur against undocumented Mexicans. Two days later, on July 4, 2025, another agent wrote: "btw tonks everywhere selling food for the 4th festivities in long beach right now." Another message in the chain read, "Pretty sure he's wet." The Los Angeles Times reported that one agent also wrote "He was just sitting in that minivan" about a person targeted by the operation. These records were filed under case number gov.uscourts.cacd.975351.

The messages were revealed in a request filed as part of a lawsuit brought by five men in June 2025. The men say ICE agents stopped and arrested them illegally during Los Angeles raids. Their lawyers have asked a federal judge to stop agents from making detention stops based on race or how much money someone appears to have. Three of the men were arrested in June 2025 while waiting at a bus stop to be picked up for work. A fourth man, who is a U.S. citizen, had his arm twisted and was pushed against a gate during questioning by masked immigration agents.

In a December 2025 deposition — a formal interview where a witness answers questions under oath before a trial — an ICE officer who led the bus stop operation described the men waiting for work as "older Hispanic males" and suggested they were flagged as possibly undocumented. That description fits the plaintiffs' main argument: that officers decided whom to stop based on how people looked rather than on any specific evidence that a particular person had done something wrong. Maya Joachin, deputy director of immigrants' rights at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said the records showed "a pattern of racial profiling" — meaning targeting people because of their race.

Angel Santiago Tafolla, an Anaheim resident and U.S. citizen who is not part of the lawsuit, gave a court statement about a separate encounter. Tafolla said ICE agents rushed through a car wash in Orange County, handcuffed him, and put him in a van before realizing he was a citizen. His story supports the plaintiffs' argument that the raids swept up people without any real reason to question their immigration status.

The broader political context for these operations is defined by the Trump administration's stance toward Los Angeles. Donald Trump sent the National Guard to Los Angeles, saying he needed to "liberate" the city from a "migrant invasion." That framing has shaped the federal government's defense of its enforcement strategy. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CalMatters: "Our agents are focused on protecting the American people – not entertaining performative outrage."

The Department of Homeland Security's response dismisses the lawsuit as political theater. But the text messages are not opinion pieces or campaign material. They are messages written by the agents themselves, now part of the official court record. That difference matters. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures, and generally requires officers to have a specific reason to stop a particular person. When officers use derogatory terms for the groups they are policing, the plaintiffs can argue that this constitutional standard is not being met across the board, not just in a few bad moments. If the judge grants the request, it would set rules limiting what ICE can use as a reason to stop people in Los Angeles.

The case also highlights a tension between the president's power to enforce immigration laws and the courts' power to check how that enforcement is carried out. The plaintiffs include both U.S. citizens and non-citizens, and the fact that a citizen was physically restrained during questioning shows the legal risk ICE faces when stops are based on perceived ethnicity. The central question is whether a federal judge will restrict detention stops based on race and class. The answer will likely depend on whether the judge treats the text messages and testimony as one-off behavior or as evidence of a system within the agency's Los Angeles operations.