ACLU, United Farm Workers and Bakersfield Residents File Lawsuit Over Border Patrol for Alleged Unlawful Practices
BAKERSFIELD, CA -The United Farm Workers (UFW) and five Kern County residents have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and U.S. Border Patrol, alleging that immigration enforcement actions conducted in January violated constitutional rights and federal laws. The lawsuit is supported by the ACLU Foundations of San Diego & Imperial Counties and seeks to prevent federal agents from conducting similar operations in the future.
The lawsuit stems from “Operation Return to Sender,” a weeklong Border Patrol initiative that took place in Kern County and surrounding areas. According to the complaint, agents traveled over 300 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border to conduct immigration enforcement in predominantly Latine communities, particularly targeting farmworkers and day laborers.
The lawsuit alleges that individuals were stopped, detained, and arrested based on appearance rather than legal status and were later transported to the El Centro Border Patrol Station in Imperial County, where they were held in detention cells and pressured into signing voluntary departure agreements. Voluntary departure is a legal process that allows individuals to leave the U.S. without a formal deportation order, but it can result in restrictions on future reentry.
One of the plaintiffs, Maria Hernandez Espinoza, who had lived in Kern County for 20 years, claims she was detained and required to sign documents she was not allowed to read, later learning that she had unknowingly agreed to leave the country. She says her requests to appear before an immigration judge were denied, and she was sent to Mexico along with at least 40 others.
“They stopped us because we look Latino or like farmworkers, because of the color of our skin. It was unfair,” Hernandez Espinoza said. “I hope our rights are protected so that all workers can work and live in peace.”
The ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties claims that those detained at the El Centro Border Patrol Station were held in cold cells, denied access to legal representation, and given misleading information about their rights and options.
“After these unlawful raids took place, Border Patrol held people at the El Centro Border Patrol Station in freezing cells, where they were cut off from family and denied access to attorneys,” said Brisa Velazquez, an immigrants” rights staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties. according to the lawsuit documents Border Patrol allegedly intentionally provided people with misinformation and deliberately withheld access to vital documents to coerce them to “voluntarily self-deport.”
The lawsuit seeks to prohibit CBP and Border Patrol from conducting similar operations and argues that the enforcement practices violated the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Fifth Amendment right to due process, and other federal laws.
CBP and DHS have not yet issued a public response to the lawsuit.