California judge holds Homeland Security in contempt in case over LA immigration sweeps

A federal judge on Tuesday held the Department of Homeland Security in contempt for allegedly slow-rolling an order to create digital copies of communications from personal cell phones used by immigration agents during operations in the Los Angeles area last year.

U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong in the Central District of California previously ordered the federal government in January to expedite imaging the personal cell phones of more than 800 agents involved in controversial immigration raids in Los Angeles in 2025.

Judge Frimpong imposed a fine of $500 per day on the federal government until it complies with the order to turn over phones as part of discovery and reimburse plaintiffs’ attorneys for the legal costs of getting the records.

Attorneys for DHS admitted in court in June that the agency had not provided the records. They told the judge they were processing the government devices at a rate of three phones every two weeks, which plaintiffs noted would take nearly four years to complete.

Attorneys representing immigrants caught up in Operation At Large — the name given to the Trump administration’s Los Angeles immigration crackdown last year — argue the phones may contain evidence of a pattern of racial profiling by federal agents.

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in May that the Department of Homeland Security “simply proceeded to thwart” Frompong’s order “by dragging their feet on imaging government-issued cell phones and by openly defying the order as to personal phones.”

Last month, ACLU attorneys asked Frimpong to issue another order that would prohibit agents from detaining people based on their race. They cited text messages and body camera footage in which agents used racial slurs, including “wet and “tonks,” to identify working-class Latinos to stop, according to court records.

“Not only are federal agents violating the Constitution on the streets, the government is violating court orders by intentionally withholding critical evidence about its immigration enforcement operations,” said Mayra Joachin with the ACLU of Southern California.

The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to questions about whether agents’ use of the word “tonks” violated its policy.

It issued a written statement after Frimpong’s contempt order that was identical to one it released last week after a different development in the case.

“Our agents are focused on protecting the American people — not entertaining performative outrage,” the statement read. “Where is the media’s outrage for Angel families who lost a loved one to illegal alien crime?”

This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.