LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles federal judge has rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to end a closely watched lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, stemming from ICE raids in Pasadena last year, alleging immigration raids in Southern California are not just unlawful, but deliberately designed to target Latino communities, according to court papers obtained Wednesday, Aug. 12.
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Residents, workers and advocacy groups sued the DHS in July 2025, alleging unconstitutional stop and detention practices by agents tied to arbitrary enforcement quotas.
On the morning of June 18, 2025, Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, Carlos Alexander Osorto and Isaac Villegas Molina were sitting at a bus stop across from a Pasadena Winchell’s Donuts. That’s when four cars suddenly stopped at the spot, and six masked and armed federal agents emerged and converged, detaining the men without immediately identifying themselves, according to the initial lawsuit.
- Also see: From a Pasadena bus stop to plaintiffs, local immigrants at forefront of seismic pause on ICE raids
Along with Jorge Hernandez Viramontes, of Baldwin Park — questioned and detained from his job at an Orange County car wash — and Jason Brian Gavidia, an East L.A. resident stopped and questioned, from an L.A. County tow yard, Osorto and his co-laborers at the Pasadena bus stop found themselves the lead plaintiffs in a federal case that continues to help determine the legal trajectory of President Donald Trump’s massive immigration crackdown.
An amended complaint in the case, Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin, filed in Los Angeles federal court earlier this year adds new claims of violations of equal protection and use of unreasonable tactics by DHS agents.
Government attorneys then asked the court to immediately toss the case, arguing that accusations in the updated version of the complaint are not enough to support plaintiffs’ legal claims.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Maame Frimpong, who is overseeing the case, determined in a written ruling that “the accusations are enough for this case to go forward at this time,” and denied the DHS’ bid to have the lawsuit thrown out.
The judge emphasized that at this stage in proceedings she has made no finding on the truth of the allegations, an issue that would be determined later.
A message seeking comment from DHS/ICE was not immediately answered Wednesday.
In the amended complaint, the plaintiffs argued the government is intentionally discriminating against Latino communities in California, choosing whom to stop and which locations to raid based on race, and treating Latino people differently because of their apparent ethnicity.
They also argued that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol were using highly intrusive tactics in carrying out the raids —such as handcuffing, confinement, moving people to a secondary location, and prolonged detention. Agents, the plaintiffs contend, were quick to both show and use force, often arriving with weapons drawn and using force even when subjects are already compliant. Such tactics are unreasonable and turn encounters into unlawful arrests, the plaintiffs allege.
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- Also see: Leaders demand to see detainees after ICE raid in Pasadena
When the complaint was filed last year, Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order limiting certain enforcement actions across several Southern California counties. A three- judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals mostly agreed with Frimpong’s ruling that the government’s roving immigration patrols were illegally conducted without reasonable suspicion.
In effect, agents, under the ruling, would continue to be prohibited from stopping people without reasonable suspicion, nor “sole reliance” on apparent race or ethnicity; speaking Spanish or English with an accent; presence in a particular location like a bus stop, car wash, or agricultural site; or the type of work a person does.
But in August 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the government’s request to stay that order while litigation proceeds, allowing the challenged practices to continue.
Trump administration officials have previously defended the stepped-up enforcement on a number of levels, saying the crackdown is necessary to maintain the rule of law, to capture violent criminals in the country illegally, and to reverse the flood of people who poured over the U.S. Mexico border during the Biden administration.
- Also see: ACLU — Immigration agents used racial slurs to target Latinos during Southern California raids
However, Eva Bitran, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California’s immigrants’ rights director, has said the stops are “discriminatory in design and execution. ICE and Border Patrol’s racist agenda extends from DHS leadership down to rank-and-file officers who deliberately target Latino community members — often with great force — because of their race. Our community suffers the consequences of this unconstitutional conduct.”
The suit was brought by five individual Latino workers and three membership organizations — the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights — as well as Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a legal services provider.
Frimpong will hold a hearing Thursday in downtown Los Angeles on a request from plaintiffs for a preliminary injunction to halt the Trump administration’s alleged campaign of warrantless arrests against people appearing “Latino, low-income or working-class.”
The judge recently held the DHS in contempt for allegedly slow-rolling an order to create digital copies of communications from personal cell phones used by immigration agents during operations.
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City News Service and staff writer Ryan Carter contributed to this report.