AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File
Newly released court filings appear to undercut the Department of Homeland Security’s public explanation for an immigration operation outside a press event hosted by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, with one federal agent privately calling the deployment “a stunt” and “just a political agenda.”
The records were filed in federal court this week as part of a lawsuit challenging immigration enforcement operations in Southern California.
The case, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel, and other legal groups on behalf of several plaintiffs, alleges federal agents carried out unconstitutional stops and arrests based on racial profiling and without reasonable suspicion.
Among the exhibits are text messages exchanged after Border Patrol agents appeared outside a Newsom press conference in Los Angeles last August.
The event launched the governor’s campaign for Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that ultimately passed and redrew California’s congressional map.
At the time, in a statement to the Los Angeles Times, DHS officials maintained the operation was unrelated to Newsom.
Yet, as one federal agent wrote of the “stunt,” in a text message to colleagues released in case filings, “We’re told to assist with targeted enforcement… That is not target enforcement. That was just a political agenda. Hopefully I can get replaced soon.”
The filings also include sworn testimony from the same agent, who added, “They marched to a Democratic governor’s press conference. It seemed to be purely political… It did not seem like there was a good operational basis to be doing that.”
When asked whether the operation had become “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” the agent replied, “It was definitely one of them, yes.”
Elsewhere in the filings, a Border Patrol agent testified that officers selected the site of an enforcement operation by searching Google for nearby car washes before choosing one in Whittier because it “was one of the places that came on the list as the nearest location.”
“[President Donald] Trump’s own immigration agents admit it,” wrote Newsom on Wednesday via X. “They were ordered to target last summer’s redistricting rally in LA… That is blatant authoritarianism, ordered by Trump.”
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