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<\/p>\nThe masked protesters screaming at a federal agent outside his home was the type of scene Trump administration officials had long feared. <\/p>\n
Cynthia Raygoza, Ashleigh Brown and Sandra Samane followed a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer from the downtown L.A. Metropolitan Detention Center to his Baldwin Park residence last August. The off-duty ICE agent\u2019s unmasked face and the name of the street he lived on were broadcast to more than 50,000 followers on a livestream from the popular \u201cice_out_ofla\u201d Instagram account.<\/p>\n
With the agent\u2019s wife and two of his children nearby, Raygoza cursed at the agent and threatened to hit him while screaming to onlookers that \u201cyour neighbor is an ICE agent,\u201d according to video of the incident. Minutes later, another woman shouted out an address near the agent\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
The agent, Rogelio Reyes Huitzilin, said the incident forever changed his family. Testifying in court last month, Huitzilin said they moved away out of fear the protesters would be back. His son withdrew from high school. His wife told jurors she was convinced protesters would return because of the \u201cclimate\u201d of anger toward immigration agents.<\/p>\n
But Baldwin Park police said there were no repeat incidents at the agent\u2019s home. No one was injured and no weapons were found. In court, Huitzilin said several of his relatives still live at the same Chesfield Street property, despite his claims it was \u201ccompromised.\u201d<\/p>\n
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First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli has vowed to come down hard on protestors who dox federal agents.<\/p>\n
(Eric Thayer\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
The most severe consequences were faced by Raygoza and Brown, who said they simply were trying to follow Huitzilin to an immigration raid, not his home. They didn\u2019t even know his name on the day of the incident and got into a dispute only after he approached them. <\/p>\n
The pair were indicted on charges of \u201cdoxxing\u201d Huitzilin<\/a> and convicted of stalking him at trial last week.<\/a> They face up to five years in federal prison.<\/p>\n Department of Homeland Security officials repeatedly have expressed alarm about the potential for agents to be \u201cdoxxed,\u201d a slang term for revealing a person\u2019s private information online. Fears that identifying officers could lead to violence has, in part, motivated the practice of keeping agents\u2019 faces hidden behind masks.<\/p>\n But incidents in which the publication of an agent\u2019s name has led to an in-person clash are rare, and criminal prosecutions for \u201cdoxxing\u201d are even rarer. The charge has been brought by federal prosecutors only five times since President Trump was reelected, according to a review of court records, and all of those cases were filed in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n Critics say the danger faced by agents whose names are made public is overblown, almost always limited to harsh and violent words lobbed from behind a laptop or phone screen. By prosecutors pivoting to using stalking charges against demonstrators, some fear they have found a new weapon against those who oppose ICE.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are now entering uncharted territory in the Department of Justice\u2019s enforcement practices,\u201d said Greg Nicolaysen, who represented Raygoza at trial.<\/p>\n Nicolaysen said the federal stalking statute is \u201cvague\u201d and much easier to prove than the \u201cdoxxing\u201d charge that initially was brought in the Baldwin Park case. While Trump administration officials have used \u201cdoxxing\u201d to describe incidents in which any information about an agent is made public, the criminal statute is much more specific. <\/p>\n To win a doxxing case, prosecutors must prove someone published a federal employee\u2019s protected personal information for the purposes of threatening them or inciting violence. An agent\u2019s name, alone, is not protected information.<\/p>\n Residents confront ICE and Border Patrol agents on Atlantic Boulevard in the city of Bell last June. <\/p>\n (Genaro Molina\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Prosecutors dismissed doxxing charges in the Baldwin Park case after a Homeland Security investigator told the court the address that protesters shouted on the livestream was a few houses away from where Reyes lived. Jurors acquitted all three women of conspiring to dox Huitzilin. Samane also was acquitted of the stalking charge.<\/p>\n But Nicolaysen and others worry the stalking convictions against Raygoza and Brown could serve as a pretext to criminalize the practice of following and observing ICE enforcement actions known as \u201crapid response,\u201d in which demonstrators identify the site of an immigration raid and call others to protest. In footage played in court showing the women following an unmarked vehicle, they can be heard discussing their plan to observe an ICE raid.<\/p>\n Ashleigh Brown\u2019s stalking conviction could chill efforts to respond to immigration enforcement actions, advocates fear.<\/p>\n (Christina House\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Where some see a form of protest, federal prosecutors allege intent to cause harm. <\/p>\n \u201cJustice has been served against two agitators who stalked a federal employee, livestreamed it on social media, and traumatized both the victim and his family,\u201d First Asst. U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli said this week. \u201cOur Constitution protects peaceful protest \u2014 not political violence and unlawful intimidation.\u201d<\/p>\n Essayli declined to be interviewed for this story and his spokesman declined to answer specific questions. Raygoza and Brown plan to challenge their convictions. <\/p>\n Federal officials provided little evidence to support claims that agents whose names are made public face danger. Asked to provide examples of doxxing incidents, Homeland Security spokeswoman Lauren Bis pointed to cases in which ICE agents received threatening phone calls or online messages.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope your kids get deported by accident. How do you sleep? F\u2014 you. Did you hear what happened to the Nazis after World War II?\u201d a Homeland Security transcript of one voicemail read. \u201cBecause it\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen to your family.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe disgusting doxxing of our officers put their lives and their families in serious danger,\u201d Bis said, adding that ICE agents face \u201ca coordinated campaign of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n Bis did not identify an incident, aside from the Baldwin Park case, in which an agent whose name was made public was confronted in person. <\/p>\n Defense attorneys for the accused challenged the wisdom of prosecuting \u201cdoxxing\u201d cases, as the alleged victims will be required to testify and publicize the very information they were trying to protect.<\/p>\n \u201cThey put his full name, his wife\u2019s name, their address, all in the public record. None of which was done in the so-called doxxing,\u201d said attorney Robert Bernstein, who represented Samane. \u201cThey doxxed their own agent by proceeding to trial.\u201d<\/p>\n In other high-profile cases in California in which ICE and Border Patrol agents\u2019 names became public, they said they faced harassment and threats.<\/p>\n Isaiah Hodgson was outed as a Border Patrol agent last June after he was filmed, unmasked, taking part in the conroversial arrest of Adrian Martinez,<\/a> a U.S. citizen accused of interfering with immigration enforcement. Hodgson was arrested the next month after allegedly getting in a drunken fight with Long Beach police <\/a>outside a Shoreline Village bar. During his detention, he bemoaned the leak of his identity. <\/p>\n \u201cHave you ever had your personal information put up online and on the f\u2014 news?\u201d he said, according to body camera footage released by Long Beach police in response to a public records request. \u201cHave you ever had f\u2014 people stand up at your parents\u2019 house because you\u2019re over here in Los Angeles doing everything?\u201d<\/p>\n Despite Hodgson\u2019s distressed comments, it was unclear if protesters actually went to his family\u2019s Hemet home. A log of calls for service released in response to a public records request shows the Riverside County Sheriff\u2019s Department visited Hodgson\u2019s home only once after his name became public. That was the day he was found dead from a cocaine overdose last year. <\/a> <\/p>\n Public records show Hodgson\u2019s parents live at the same address. They did not respond to calls seeking comment. <\/p>\n Hodgson also said he\u2019d been receiving \u201cdeath threats,\u201d according to a coroner\u2019s report made public after his overdose. The sheriff\u2019s department declined to comment.<\/p>\n![\"Residents](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772801777_221_.jpeg\")
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