by Wendy Fry and Sergio Olmos, CalMatters
Border Patrol agents moved their operations northward Thursday to California’s capital, targeting a Home Depot in Sacramento, this time more than 500 miles away from the border.
On Friday, a judge in Los Angeles ordered federal immigration agents to temporarily stop the “roving patrols” in which heavily armed agents have aggressively detained immigrants and U.S. citizens throughout Southern California during a month-long crackdown. They targeted car washes, construction jobs, and Home Depots, arresting mostly Latino men who were longtime residents of Los Angeles.
It appeared agents had stopped the warrantless, aggressive sweeps through Los Angeles since the court ruling, which only applied to the state’s Central District. However, Border Patrol has been under a separate court order to stop similar warrantless raids in the state’s Eastern District – which includes Sacramento – after agents raided a Home Depot and other worksites in January.
The architect of both the Central Valley and Los Angeles operations, Gregory Bovino, stood in front of the State Capitol Building on Thursday for an interview with Fox News.
“There is no sanctuary city. Sacramento is not a sanctuary city. The state of California is not a sanctuary state. There is no sanctuary anywhere,” the El Centro sector’s chief patrol agent said. “We’re here to stay. We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to affect this mission and secure the homeland.”
Also on Thursday, a federal appeals court denied on procedural grounds the Department of Homeland Security’s request to pause the temporary restraining order won last week by civil rights groups, who argued that the “brazen, midday kidnappings” violated the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches, and the government was illegally denying detainees access to an attorney.
In the Kern County case, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in April barring agents from using racial profiling in the Eastern District of California, which includes Sacramento.
In court paperwork, the federal government maintains that its tactics are legitimate while vowing to retrain agents on the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
Bovino publicly said that Border Patrol went after a list of specific criminal targets, but the agency’s own documents later showed that it only had a previous record on one of the 78 people it arrested.
After that court ruling, Border Patrol agents moved districts and became more aggressive, fanning out, while wearing masks, across Southern California.
Not only do Thursday’s activities mark a return to the Eastern District, but they went right to the heart of California’s government.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said the Border Patrol is trying to escape a court order, and said they should get out of California.
“The Border Patrol should do their jobs – at the border – instead of continuing their tirade statewide of illegal racial profiling and illegal arrests,” said Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a Newsom spokesperson.
Agents arrested about 10 people at the Home Depot in Sacramento on Thursday, according to Border Patrol.
In a video shared by KCRA, the NBC affiliate in Sacramento, a woman identified as Andrea Castillo can be heard shouting, “Leave him alone! He’s a U.S. citizen!” as masked agents chase a man running across a parking lot. An agent wearing a mask momentarily turns and points a can of mace at the person filming the video. Another armed man, in a full-face mask and wearing a green vest labeled only “police,” could be seen joining in the chase. Castillo continues shouting, “He’s my husband.”
Five men surround the man, who is face-down on the blacktop, while screaming at the person filming the video to stay back. “His brother is a Marine Corps officer,” she shouts while several more armed and masked men join in on the arrest. “Stand back or you will be maced,” another agent screams at her. The woman filming asks one of the agents for his badge number, and he responds: “Google me.”
Another photo shared to social media shows the man — identified in media reports as Jose Castillo — being arrested with a badly stained face, presumably from mace, and what appears to be a bruise under his left eye. His wife told KCRA he is a U.S. citizen. The Border Patrol said he slashed one of their tires in the Home Depot parking lot.
The Mexican government interviewed 330 Mexican nationals who were arrested by immigration officials in Los Angeles between June 6 and July 6, finding more than half had lived in the U.S. for at least a decade. One-third had lived here for more than 20 years, and one-third had U.S.-born children, according to the Mexican Consulate of Los Angeles.
The vast majority of those arrested were employed in working-class labor-intensive jobs, with 16.4% working at a car wash, 13.3% in construction, 13% had a factory job, and 11.5% worked as landscapers.
In a motion to dismiss the Kern County lawsuit, the federal government argued agents are using a variety of factors, and not just a person’s skin color, when considering immigration stops, including the type of haircut a person has.
“There are a number of factors Border Patrol can consider in assessing reasonable suspicion, including the characteristic appearance of persons who live in Mexico, such as the mode of dress and haircut,” the federal government wrote in their motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California on behalf of the United Farm Workers.
The government also said in the court filings that agents are considering a “totality of the circumstances, including the agent’s training and experience,” and prior surveillance of locations known to agents as places where undocumented workers congregate.
The Border Patrol also issued new guidelines to agents, the government said, to provide detainees with access to legal counsel before they sign “voluntary removal” orders, after being accused of using coercive tactics like brandishing their guns when someone asked to see an immigration judge.
Wendy Fry and Sergio Olmos are both journalists with CalMatters. Folsom Times and All Town Media LLC is an authorized CalMatters media partner in an effort to keep our local community up to date on happenings in the State Capitol. Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett contributed to this reporting
