Latino New Yorkers file sweeping class action against Trump over ‘race-based’ ICE arrests

BROOKLYN (CN) — A batch of Latino New Yorkers has filed a class action against the Trump administration amid its ongoing and heightened deportation campaign with hopes of stopping “race-based” and “warrantless” arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a 96-page complaint, filed Wednesday in the Eastern District of New York, the plaintiffs claim the government’s recent boundary-pushing immigration enforcement “is terrorizing New York communities and tearing families apart.”

“Across the state, roving bands of masked and heavily armed federal agents, both on foot and in unmarked cars, are indiscriminately stopping and arresting thousands of Black and Brown people, the vast majority of whom are Latino, based solely on their perceived race and ethnicity,” they argue.

The eight plaintiffs are each Latino New Yorkers who claim they were unlawfully stopped, arrested and subsequently released by federal immigration agents in the state. They range from 19 to 63 years old, with some spending as little as a day to as much as two months in ICE custody before getting released.

All of them claim that, because of their ethnicity, they fear being rearrested by immigration officers.

“Targeted communities are living under a state of siege,” the plaintiffs argue. “Throughout New York state, from Buffalo to New York City and Long Island, federal agents are seizing people outside their homes, on their way to work, while driving their children to school and in the parking lots of stores. The widespread targeting of people going about their daily lives has led many to limit their activities out of fear that they will be next.”

Even those with lawful immigration status fear arrests by ICE, the plaintiffs claim. A 2025 report from ProPublica found more than 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration agents under the second Trump administration, which has encouraged a stray from targeted enforcement efforts to broad, roving ones. That approach has been largely condemned by judges around the country as an unconstitutional affront to due process, however.

Still, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and Customs and Border Patrol, denies any wrongdoing. In a Thursday statement to Courthouse News, a department spokesperson said the Supreme Court “has already vindicated us on these practices,” referencing a 2025 ruling from the high court that allowed the agency to continue targeting Latinos and Spanish speakers in California.

“Any allegations ICE law enforcement engages in racial profiling are FALSE,” the DHS spokesperson said. “ICE has authority for lawful arrests under 8 USC 1357. Law enforcement officers use ‘reasonable suspicion’ to investigate immigration status and probable cause to make arrests consistent with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

White shoe law firm Covington & Burling is teaming up with civil rights firms like the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Aid Society and Make the Road New York in bringing this class action, which lists the Department of Justice and the FBI as defendants in addition to DHS.

They’re looking to establish three classes: A suspicionless stop class, which encompasses those stopped by federal agents without reasonable suspicion; a discriminatory treatment class, which covers those approached at least in part due to being Latino; and a warrantless arrest class, which includes anyone arrested without a warrant for supposed immigration violations.

Each proposed class applies to stops and/or arrests based in New York State dating back to Jan. 20, 2025 — the first day of President Donald Trump’s second term.

“For over a year, immigration agents have treated our state like a Constitution-free zone, unlawfully profiling and detaining Black and Brown New Yorkers in service of Trump’s deportation agenda,” Amy Belsher, director of Immigrants’ Rights Litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement announcing the suit.

“New Yorkers going about their lives — heading to work, taking their kids to school, or grocery shopping — must now fear being suddenly snatched by masked agents and arrested without probable cause. These practices are discriminatory, unconstitutional, and an affront to the rights of all New Yorkers,” she wrote.

New York Attorney General Letitia James also expressed support for the suit, writing in a statement that the Trump administration’s “policy of racial profiling is illegal and unconscionable.”

“New Yorkers should be able to go about their daily lives without fear of being targeted by masked federal agents because of the color of their skin,” she added.

A spokesperson for FBI New York told Courthouse News that the bureau doesn’t comment on ongoing legal matters. A DOJ spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Magistrate Judge James Wicks has been assigned the case in Brooklyn’s federal court, but a district judge is expected to take over in the coming days. The plaintiffs are seeking a court order barring warrantless, suspicionless or race-based immigration stops based on the Fourth and Fifth amendments.

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