“Together, they bring these actions to demand that no government agency acts with such blatant disregard for civil and human rights again”
In the year since the Trump administration’s unjustified invasion of Los Angeles, American citizens and immigrants subjected to violent and unconstitutional assaults and arrests by mass deportation agents have been fighting for justice.
Those relentlessly pushing for accountability include attorney Vanessa Valdez, who last June stood before the Oxnard City Council to condemn the harassment of community members like Juan Carlos Ramirez, a U.S. citizen who was brutally assaulted by mass deportation agents who were abducting his father. Armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “pepper-sprayed Ramirez, slammed him onto the hoods of two vehicles, punched his face and kneed him in the side, according to a legal claim he later filed against the federal government,” The Los Angeles Times reports.
“This past week especially was very difficult for our team, because we were trying to make sure our schools were safe,” Valdez told the Oxnard, California mayor and council members at the time. “We know there were graduations being held, promotions being held, and so we wanted to make sure our families felt safe and they knew that they could count on support at a moment’s notice if needed.”
But little did Valdez know that she would soon be the next target of the administration’s mass deportation obsessions. Despite identifying herself as a legal observer, the attorney was shot six times with rubber bullets during a massive raid at cannabis company Glass House Farms the following month. Unable to see due to tear gas, she had to crawl on all fours to escape the state-sponsored violence.
“Ramirez and Valdez are among the dozens of U.S. citizens and immigrants who are seeking financial compensation for damages they say they suffered during President Trump’s immigration dragnet,” The L.A. Times now reports. “For Valdez, that includes the cost of hospital visits, lost wages as she recovered, anxiety medication and seeing a therapist.”
In his guest post at Charting a New Narrative on Immigration, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights’ (CHIRLA) Jorge-Mario Cabrera similarly noted that while Angelenos mobilized overnight to coordinate support for impacted individuals – including setting up mutual aid funds, delivering groceries to homes where breadwinners were suddenly disappeared, and driving folks to court hearings and check-ins – “there is still pain. Families continue to heal from trauma that cannot simply be erased. Many live with the scars of separation, detention, and fear.”
For Tolulope Akinsulie, the scars of separation, detention, and fear are plainly visible. He still bears the scars from dog bites following a military-style raid on his Chicago apartment building last September, when federal agents armed like they were going to a war zone “broke down doors without warrants” and “rounded up adults and children alike at gunpoint in the middle of the night,” said a coalition of civil rights organizations.
“The complaints describe individuals being held at gunpoint, physically kicked or struck by rifles, and marched outside in little to no clothing or pajamas,” said the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the University of Chicago Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (IRC), the MacArthur Justice Center, and the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC). “Residents were targeted based on race and ethnicity. Detainees were not told why they were being held and were never shown warrants, and were barred from contacting attorneys.”
Meanwhile, U.S. citizen children as young as one-year-old “screamed and cried in terror” at the sight of gunmen while one teen said he was zip-tied along with his mother, ProPublica reported.
Akinsulie, an immigrant originally from Nigeria, was asleep in his bed when he saw “heavily armed federal agents rushing into his apartment,” the report said. “He then felt the jaws of a large dog biting into his right ankle, knocking him to the floor. Akinsulie screamed as the dog tore the flesh from his ankle, thighs, hip and wrist.” Akinsulie said he endured unsettling nightmares where dogs chased him and even talked to him.
He’s since become one of 18 U.S. citizens and immigrants to have filed legal action against the federal government, both to “pursue remedies for their individual harms and to hold the entire system accountable,” groups said. “Together, they bring these actions to demand that no government agency acts with such blatant disregard for civil and human rights again.”
Despite these undeniable abuses against American and immigrant communities alike, Congressional Republicans this week voted to hand ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) another $70 billion in taxpayer dollars without the oversight and accountability demanded by Americans. “An additional $70 billion in funding for masked agents and brutality in our neighborhoods with little to no accountability is a travesty for American families who are trying to make ends meet,” commented America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas.
This massive infusion of cash does not mean the fight for accountability and justice is over. In fact, it now becomes as important as ever.
“Unarmed people were asleep in their homes when they were met with a level of force and cruelty that would be unthinkable outside a battlefield,” Samuel White, student attorney with the University of Chicago Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, said in the statement on the legal action from Chicago residents. “Yet, despite this administration’s rhetoric, this is not a war. Immigrants are human beings with legal rights, and we intend to use every available legal tool to hold those responsible accountable and secure the justice our clients deserve.”
