ICE agents used racial slurs during Los Angeles crackdown, court files show

Agents accused in lawsuit of using anti-immigrant slurs and denigrating undocumented Mexicans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents deployed last summer to the Los Angeles area referred to the subjects of their immigration operations with racial slurs, according to newly released court documents. On 4 July 2025, an unidentified agent wrote in a text chain, “btw tonks everywhere selling food for the 4th festivities in long beach right now”, invoking an anti-immigrant slur, which the US border patrol has previously warned against. In a different string of messages sent on 2 July 2025, an agent wrote: “Some of these people are stupid. Why would you post on social media that you’re wet,” using the abbreviated version of a slur long used to denigrate undocumented Mexicans who cross into the US by the Rio Grande, a river stretching from Colorado into the Gulf of Mexico. “Tonks” and “wet” also appeared in other correspondence. The slurs were made public on Monday in a motion filed for a case five men brought against the Trump administration in June 2025, alleging that the stop-and-arrest practices of ICE agents during the Los Angeles raids were unlawful. Lawyers for the men hav