In early January, as the days of the Biden administration wound down and the Trump era loomed, five dozen Border Patrol agents deployed to predominantly Latino Kern County, some 300 miles from the California-Mexico border, and began what they say was a targeted search for criminal immigrants.
But attorneys for some who were subjected to their tactics that week said it was a “fishing expedition” targeting people of a certain skin color, regardless of citizenship and status. In a lawsuit filed on Feb. 26, they allege that agents abused their power, made arrests without warrants and used trickery to get people to agree to leave the country. These actions left the region shaken, they said.
“They stopped us because we look Latino or like farmworkers, because of the color of our skin. It was unfair,” Maria Guadalupe Hernandez Espinoza, 46, a grandmother, said in a statement.
Hernandez Espinoza, who was arrested on Jan. 7 after working her shift at a tomato greenhouse, is one of at least 40 people who were removed from the country under what is known as voluntary departure, the ACLU states in its complaint.
On Jan. 8, agents arrested Ernesto Campos Gutierrez, 44, a U.S. citizen and 20-year Bakersfield, California, resident, the lawsuit states. He was on his way to a gardening job when agents blocked his truck, slashed his tires, dragged a passenger from the truck and arrested them, the complaint adds. They accused Campos Gutierrez of alien smuggling and held him for four hours, according to the lawsuit filed by United Farm Workers and five others. He was not deported.
"This was a fishing expedition, in which Border Patrol didn't target any particular people, used racial profiling and swept through the community," Bree Bernwanger, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California, told NBC News.
Later that same day, Border Patrol agents pulled over Yolanda Aguilera Martinez, 56, a lawful permanent resident “for no discernible reason,” the lawsuit alleges. A 45-year-old Kern County resident, Aguilera Martinez showed her California driver’s license. Border Patrol ordered her out of the car, threw the mother and grandmother to the ground, handcuffed her and arrested her, the lawsuit alleges.
While she was being held in the back of an SUV, an agent allowed her to call someone to send a photo of her legal residency card. After he scanned it, he told her “get the f--- out of here,” according to the lawsuit.
The arrests were carried out 300 miles from the California-Mexico border, well beyond the 100 air miles from the border that Border Patrol has claimed as the zone where it can conduct warrantless searches.
The Los Angeles Times, citing three former Biden administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, reported last week that El Centro sector Border Patrol chief agent Gregory Bovino "went rogue" with the operation and did it without knowledge of higher-ups.
NBC News reached out to Customs and Border Protection, which includes Border Patrol, to ask about the allegations. The emailed response, attributed to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, stated that Border Patrol enforcement actions are “highly targeted.”
“When we discover any alleged or potential misconduct, we immediately refer it for investigation and cooperate fully with any criminal or administrative investigations,” the spokesperson also said.
The statement did not mention the allegations in the lawsuit nor whether Bovino's role in the arrests was under investigation. Jaime Ruiz, a CBP spokesperson, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Bovino touted the arrests in Kern County on social media. His posts highlight those arrested with criminal backgrounds and include one that states that Border Patrol agents in that jurisdiction, known as a sector, "go the extra mile — or 500 of them ...," a reference to the reach of its jurisdiction.
In a statement last month, Bovino said that sector's responsibility stretches from the border "all the way to the Oregon line."
Shook the Central Valley 'to the core'
The Border Patrol stated that 60 agents arrested 78 people — all were unlawfully present in the U.S. — in the three-day January operation. Those arrested included someone convicted of raping an 8-year-old girl and someone wanted on a warrant for a sex offense against a child. Other offenses included weapons charges, marijuana or other drug possession and drunk driving convictions, among other crimes, the agency said.
But attorneys said the arrests have had wider impact, including among their clients, some of whom had no criminal convictions and were expelled. The agents’ actions “have shaken the Central Valley to its core,” the attorneys stated referring to the California region.
"The level of trauma is very high. There are people — who were detained, shipped off to El Centro and then removed from the country — who had minor children who they were responsible for," said Ajay Krishnan, an attorney with Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP, which is representing some of the defendants.
Plaintiffs are also being represented by American Civil Liberties Foundations of Northern California, Southern California, and San Diego and Imperial counties.
A person can agree, by signing appropriate documents, to a “voluntary departure.” By doing so, the person avoids a deportation order and preserves the possibility of re-entering the country legally at a future time.
But the person also risks being prohibited from applying for legal re-entry for several years, depending on how long they were in the U.S. without legal status and other factors.
In several cases, the lawsuit alleges, agents told people to sign electronic pads without allowing them to see the document, failed to tell them of the possible consequences of voluntarily leaving the U.S., or didn’t show or read them the document in their language. In some cases, according to the plaintiffs, agents told people they were signing for some other purpose or they pressured them into signing with threats of longer imprisonment or by subjecting them to difficult conditions and keeping them isolated.
Juan Vargas Mendez, a 20-year resident of Kern County who is married to a U.S. citizen and has no criminal history, was among those deported. Vargas Mendez, 37, was arrested while on his way from a ranch where he's worked for 10 years. According to the lawsuit, agents took his nasal spray that helps him breathe when he arrived at the El Centro holding facility and he was tricked into signing an agreement to voluntarily leave the country.
The lawsuit accuses the agents of violating the plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights to protection from detention without a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally and from arrest without a warrant.
“The person’s perceived race, ethnic background or occupation cannot justify a detentive stop. Nor can a person’s refusal to answer voluntary questions,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit also alleges the agents violated the due process protections of the Fifth Amendment. Agents should not have expelled any of those they arrested or detained through “voluntary departure” unless those people knowingly and voluntarily waived their right to an immigration hearing, lawyers stated in the lawsuit.
“When Border Patrol left Ms. Hernandez Espinoza in Mexicali, an agent gave her a copy of the document she had signed the day before,” the lawsuit states. “It was the first time Ms. Hernandez Espinoza saw that her signature was on a document purporting to agree to voluntary departure."
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