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Los Angeles is mounting a legal challenge to the immigration sweeps that have spread fear and outrage across the region in recent weeks.
L.A. city, county and surrounding communities announced Tuesday that they have joined a lawsuit that seeks to intervene in the federal actions that have swept the region since June.
”These unconstitutional roundups and raids cannot be allowed to continue,” said Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto. “This cannot become routine, to send militarized troops into our streets without reasonable suspicion, without probable cause, to round people up and take them away.”
The lawsuit, first filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups last week, accuses Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies of racially profiling people, conducting illegal stops and raids, using disproportionate force, and detaining people in conditions that deny them their constitutional rights. It asks the courts to intervene.
The injunction request comes a day after federal agents descended on MacArthur Park, sparking widespread outrage. It’s still unclear what the operation was intended to do. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said it does not comment on ongoing enforcement operations.
The city attorney’s office described recent immigration actions as unlike other law enforcement activity “that has occurred on a regular basis in the Los Angeles region in more than 70 years.”
Pasadena, Santa Monica, Culver City, Pico Rivera, Montebello, Monterey Park and West Hollywood have also joined the lawsuit.
At Tuesday’s news conference, Montebello Mayor Salvador Melendez said every resident is entitled to constitutional rights regardless of immigration status.
“We cannot allow families to be torn apart without due process and cannot allow constitutional rights to be trampled,” he said.
Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo described one recent incident in which armed, masked immigration agents picked up three men on their way to work cleaning up the Eaton Fire burn site.
“ I’m offended by the complete violation of due process in our constitutional rights,” he said. “As an immigrant, I’m offended by the immorality and plain out just dismissal of people who are here to contribute.”
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights estimates 2,500 people have been detained by immigration agents since early June.