As federal immigration agents swarmed Los Angeles last summer under orders from the Trump administration, some used crude language and racial slurs as they moved to detain immigrants.
“Yeah, just plug us in wherever you see some tonks,” said one officer, using a derogatory term for the sound a flashlight makes when it hits someone’s head. “We’ll jump out.”
The remarks were recorded in body camera footage that was among the multitude of videos, texts and other transcripts submitted Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union in federal court after a monthslong, court-ordered discovery. Monday’s motion — filed by the ACLU, Public Counsel and other advocacy organizations — requested a preliminary injunction to stop federal immigration agents from using an individual’s “apparent status as low-income or working-class and Latino” to conduct detentive stops.
“This filing should shock the conscience,” Mayra Joachin, deputy director of immigrants’ rights at the ACLU of Southern California, said in a statement. “Evidence gathered from the government has confirmed what our communities have known all along: immigration officers are flagrantly violating the law by detaining people without justification and often primarily because of the color of their skin.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and other federal agents carried out sweeping raids in Los Angeles last year as part of the White House’s aggressive mass-deportation push. The federal immigration agents would often target sites where day laborers would congregate and indiscriminately carry out arrests.
The activities sparked tense protests, leading to President Donald Trump unlawfully deploying the National Guard.
“Our agents are focused on protecting the American people — not entertaining performative outrage,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday to NOTUS when asked for comment.
The videos, which did not clearly distinguish from which federal agencies the agents came, included body camera footage from June 2025 to September 2025. Agents were not identified in the videos or court filings. The Los Angeles Times and CalMatters were first to report the court filings.
In one video recorded Aug. 6, Border Patrol agents are seen in the back of a cargo van. One agent points to a backpack and asks, “Who’s backpack is that? Tonk’s backpack?”
Another video recorded on June 12 showed an agent lament, “One tonk fucking got away, dude.” The agent repeats the phrase again later before touching the body camera, asking, “How do you turn off the camera?”
Footage from June 19 showed two federal agents discussing an operation they just completed.
“There was a guy, I’m pretty sure he’s wet,” one agent said, using a racial slur for immigrants. “He was just sitting in that minivan.”
Federal agents were also recorded mocking a vulgar chant from anti-ICE protesters. Another video recorded on Sept. 23 contains a conversation between two officers that appears to be about a woman that was tracking their whereabouts.
“She’s a white lady, too,” one officer is heard saying in the footage.
“They like being oppressed for other races,” his colleague replies. “I don’t know why.”
In a series of text messages exchanged on July 2 one federal agent asks if they could “pull facial rec off of profile pies of people who are self admitting in tik tok comments to being illegal.”
The agent sent a photo which was redacted in the court document, adding, “This bitch good enough to facial rec?”
A colleague replied that the photo did not result in any matches.
“Some of these people are stupid,” the first agent replied. “Why would you post on social media that you’re wet.”
In a separate text exchange on July 4, an agent wrote, “tonks everywhere selling food for the 4th festivities in long beach right now.”
Armando Gudino, executive director of the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, a plaintiff in the lawsuit along with five Latino workers and other organizations, said the exhibits “reinforce the urgent need for accountability and an immediate end to these unconstitutional and illegal practices against our communities.”
A federal district court issued a temporary restraining order on July 11, 2025, that barred indiscriminate immigration stops. The Supreme Court put that ruling on hold in August 2025, allowing the federal government to continue the practice while litigation continued.
A hearing for Monday’s motion is scheduled for Sept. 24.
