Immigration officers called Latinos racial slurs during stops: Video

Administration Immigration officers called Latinos racial slurs during stops: Video Comments: by Ryan Mancini - 07/29/26 11:30 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Ryan Mancini - 07/29/26 11:30 AM ET Comments: Link copied

NOW PLAYING

Videos obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) show federal immigration officers using racial slurs to refer to Latinos they encountered at traffic stops.

The ACLU SoCal included the videos along with text messages and other transcripts in a court filing to block “the Trump administration from conducting suspicionless and racially discriminatory immigration stops,” the organization said in a statement.

The group added that the information obtained in the case “contradicts the government’s account of its enforcement operations and shows agents relied on race and ethnicity in deciding whom to stop.”

The video of note shows a June 2025 raid at a Home Depot in Hollywood during the massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids throughout Los Angeles last year. An immigration officer with a body camera can be heard saying, “There was a guy, I’m pretty sure he’s wet. He was just sitting in that minivan.” A different officer can be heard telling another, “Yeah, just plug us in where you see some tonks.”

The term “wet” is short for the racist slur “wetback,” which was historically used to refer to Mexican and other Latino immigrants who entered the U.S. after crossing the Rio Grande. “Tonk” originates from the sound of an officer’s flashlight striking a migrant’s head, according to Huffpost.

Another video taken that same month showed an officer lamenting, “One tonk f‑‑‑ing got away, dude.” He repeated this before touching his body camera and asking, “How do you turn off the camera?”

A separate video included in the motion taken on Aug. 6 shows U.S. Border Patrol agents pointing to a backpack and asking, “Who’s backpack is that? Tonk’s backpack?”

Mayra Joachín, ACLU SoCal’s deputy director of immigrants’ rights, said the court filing with the videos and other information “should shock the conscience.”

“Evidence gathered from the government has confirmed what our communities have known all along: immigration officers are flagrantly violating the law by detaining people without justification and often primarily because of the color of their skin,” Joachín said in the statement.

The court filing for Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin emphasizes that the Constitution bars law enforcement from using race as a substitute for individualized suspicion, arguing that the stops violated the Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told The Hill that federal immigration officers “are focused on protecting the American people — not entertaining performative outrage.”

“Where is the media’s outrage for Angel families who lost a loved one to illegal alien crime?” the spokesperson told the newspaper.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, a Los Angeles County-based organization defending migrant and immigrant rights nationwide, condemned the videos.

“Our communities have been denouncing foul play from day one. The evidence doesn’t lie: these arrests were never about safety, they were about skin color. We repudiate this racial profiling in the strongest terms — our communities deserve better,” Angelica Salas, executive director of coalition and one of the case’s plaintiffs, said in the ACLU SoCal’s statement.

Add as preferred source on Google Tags ACLU ICE Racial profiling Trump administration

Comments: Link copied