“That was astonishing to me, because almost all of the detainees that I saw were in either orange or red,” Obernolte said Thursday, July 17. “There were hardly any blue uniforms.”

The high percentage of detainees classified as criminals at the Adelanto ICE center is an exception, however, according to the agency’s own data.

About every two weeks, ICE releases updated data on those it detains. According to data released on July 7, 69% of the 213 detainees at the High Desert center Obernolte visited on July 11 were criminals. The classification includes both convicted criminals and those with pending criminal charges.

But statewide, only 28.26% of the 3,284 people currently in detention are criminals, according to ICE.

That’s not unusual. Nationwide, there were 47,238 people being detained by ICE as of July 7. According to the agency, 13,656 of those detained — 28.9% — were categorized as criminals.

ICE did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story.

Threat levels

President Donald Trump‘s administration has repeatedly said it’s targeting “the worst of the worst” — including terrorists, gang members and violent criminals — in the immigration sweeps that began soon after his second inauguration on Jan. 20.

But ICE is detaining more than violent criminals, according to its own data.

The agency sorts those it detains into four “threat levels.”

“Threat level is determined by the criminality of a detainee, including the recency of the criminal behavior and its severity,” the footnotes in ICE’s Detention Statistics spreadsheet explains. “A detainee can be graded on a scale of one to three with one being the highest severity. If a detainee has no criminal convictions, he/she will be classified as ‘No ICE Threat Level.’ “

As of July 7, 36.43% of the detainees at the Adelanto ICE center were categorized “Threat Level 1.”

“These numbers confirm what we’ve been seeing for years, that the overwhelming majority of people in ICE detention do not pose any threat to public safety,” Javier Hernandez, executive director of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, wrote in an email on Thursday, July 17.

“In fact, only a small fraction are classified as ‘Threat Level 1,’ and even that designation is often vague and not always based on actual convictions,” he continued.

California detainees

The Adelanto ICE center had a higher percentage of both criminals and those categorized as “Threat Level 1” among its detainees than California’s five other ICE detention centers.

As of July 7, there were 3,284 detainees in the six detention facilities combined, according to ICE. The agency characterized 28.26% of them as criminals and 10.81% as “Threat Level 1.” And 83.7% of the detainees in California were categorized as “No ICE Threat Level.”

According to the data:

• The Adelanto ICE Processing Center had 213 detainees, 69% of them classified as criminals and 36.43% characterized as “Threat Level 1.”
• The Desert View Annex in Adelanto had 412 detainees, 35.14% of them classified as criminals, 3.62% characterized as “Threat Level 1.”
• The Golden State Annex in McFarland had 582 detainees, 50.76% of them classified as criminals, 22.55% characterized as “Threat Level 1.”
• The Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico had 667 detainees, 13.63% of them classified as criminals, 5.12% of them characterized as “Threat Level 1.”
• The Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield had 60 detainees, 88.83% of them classified as criminals, 49.85% of them characterized as “Threat Level 1.”
• The Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego had 1,360 detainees, 14.57% of them classified as criminals, 4.97% of them characterized as “Threat Level 1.”

On July 2, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, along with other local advocacy groups, sued the Department of Homeland Security — which administers ICE — accusing the federal government of unconstitutionally arresting and detaining people for the sake of meeting arrest quotas. In May, Trump aide Stephen Miller directed ICE to make 3,000 immigration arrests per day.

“The objective of this draconian crackdown is to eviscerate basic rights to due process and to shield from public view the horrifying ways ICE and Border Patrol agents treat citizens and residents who have been stigmatized by our government as violent criminals based on skin color alone,” Mark Rosenbaum, senior special counsel for strategic litigation at Public Counsel, representing the plaintiffs, said in an ACLU news release.

Meanwhile, the number of immigrants detained by ICE in California is the highest it’s been since Trump’s first term:

• In 2019, the agency detained 4,375 people in nine facilities.
• In 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, that number fell to 966 people in seven facilities.
• In 2021, after the election of President Joe Biden, and as the pandemic continued, the number fell further to 794 in eight facilities.
• In 2022, the number of people detained by ICE in California rose to 1,530 in seven facilities.
• In 2023, ICE held 1,955 people in six California detention centers.
• And in 2024, the agency held 2,664 people in six California facilities.

Gaps in data

The data ICE releases about twice each month doesn’t include information on who is detained in each center, what specific crimes they’ve allegedly committed, if they’ve been convicted of those crimes or other details. The reports also exclude those being detained in hospitals, hotels, Office of Refugee Resettlement or Mexican Interior Repatriation Program facilities.

The lack of clarity in the data the agency releases is no accident, according to Graeme Blair, an associate professor of political science at UCLA.

“ICE in particular does not want to release this information,” he said.

The agency’s traditional lack of transparency has been a concern for Blair, and is now heightened by Trump’s return to office.

“A group of us came together in the fall, and realized that given what kind of promises and threats Donald Trump was making around immigration, it was going to be important to be able to fact-check what they’re saying,” he said.

Blair and others created the Deportation Data Project, which publishes data obtained through federal Freedom of Information Act requests from ICE.

The data the project has received, in three waves as of mid-July, has underscored that the White House rhetoric around the detentions doesn’t match what ICE’s own records are saying.

Among “the (detainees) that do have offenses, the biggest category is traffic infractions,” Blair said. “Only 8% of detainees have been convicted of violent crimes and that’s a far cry from what (the White House’s) claims are.”

“I would certainly like to work with my colleagues in Congress to fix our broken immigration system,” he said. “But we should be able to agree that the law ought to be enforced.”

Despite the United States being deeply divided politically, Blair thinks releasing accurate and more detailed information on who ICE is detaining is important — and it’s making a difference.

Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster in America and a supporter of Trump’s reelection, called ICE rounding up migrant workers whose only crime was being in the country illegally “insane.”

“Not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers. Just construction workers. Showing up in construction sites, raiding them. Gardeners. Like, really?” Rogan said on his July 2 show.

“I think when you have the ACLU and Joe Rogan both saying there’s something wrong with these arrests,” Blair said, “hopefully these conversations will break through and help people understand what it means to arrest 3,000 people a day and who’s being arrested.”

More about ICE’s California detention centers

• 3 Southern California Democrats denied entry to a high desert ICE detention center Sunday
• 5 Southern California Democrats demand ICE detention center improve conditions for detainees
• California Republicans ask President Trump to focus immigration efforts on ‘violent criminals’ rather than ‘non-criminal migrants’
• What the data say about who ICE is arresting in San Diego
• Two Democrats and a Republican visited ICE Adelanto detention center. Only one got in

After all, there was a chance — if a Texas immigration judge ruled their way — that her family was about to be reunited.

After a month apart, Murillo’s husband, and the father of their children, was on the cusp of finally coming home.

Until he wasn’t.

Jose Luis Zavala, a gardener, was one of thousands of immigrants swept up last month in President Donald Trump’s massive nationwide immigration crackdown. Now detained in a Texas detention center, his journey halfway across the country is a reflection of many with a now elusive path to freedom.

It’s a path that runs through an increasingly complex federal immigration system, already unclear to many Americans, where attorneys, families and detainees face a pipeline of evolving interpretation of rules and expanded federal authority, claimed by a new presidential administration.

As Zavala’s attorney said: “Be prepared for surprises.”

Those surprises, as Zavala and his family learned this week, could impact how long detainees could be in custody, whether they will remain in this country or rejoin families in the U.S.

For weeks, Zavala and his family have found themselves among the targets of the government’s mammoth legal battle to deport millions of immigrants in the country illegally — an effort fueled by relentless reminders by the president and his officials to use federal law enforcement to purge the “worst of the worst” felons from the nation.

• Also See: First came the immigration agents, then came the text. Pomona family’s day turns into a nightmare

For the Trump administration, Zavala’s 20-year-old DUI charge — which had been cleared from his record — and his undocumented status, count him as among the “worst,” despite the charge having been cleared and a record of raising a family, with a job, in the U.S. for years.

Like many, recent weeks have been full of uncertainty, as days turn into weeks in federal custody, and as expanding interpretations of long-standing federal rules cast a shadow over a detainee’s fate.

As his family waited, Zavala was in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s massive expansion of a federal drive that put he and millions in jeopardy of being detained indefinitely.

Against all that, nearly one month after he was apprehended, Zavala took a big step toward walking out of an El Paso detention center, with his eldest son and daughter to fly home to Pomona.

But in a span of 48 hours, joy turned to sorrow after the government applied the breaks, his family and attorneys said.

It’s a glimpse at the kind of turbulence Southern California immigrant families face against a backdrop of a mammoth removal strategy designed to deport millions.

Rewind to June 18: From LA’s B-18 to El Paso

On June 18, Zavala was on his lunch break on a La Mirada gardening job when federal immigration agents converged.

“I’m (expletive)” he texted his wife, but in Spanish.

Within moments, he was ushered into the rear seat of an SUV and taken to the basement of the Edward R. Roybal Building, the downtown Los Angeles ICE detention center where in a facility called – B-18- scores of detainees – fathers such as Zavala, mothers, aunts and uncles — have been taken and processed since raids began all over the region in early June.

• Also See: A day outside an LA detention center shows profound impact of ICE raids on families

It’s the first stop in processing detainees, during which officers verify their identities before transporting them to detention centers. It’s also where their families and lawyers have come in search of their loved ones.

On June 18, Murillo and her daughter were among them. They’d come to see Zavala and give him vital medication for his diabetes. Murillo was lucky to get in after repeated tries, for a fleeting moment with the patriarch of the family of Murillo and their four children.

They left in tears, amid the early uncertainty of the raids blanketing Southern California. What did he do wrong, they wondered? Would he simply be deported on the spot? Would he get any kind of medical care?

For ICE and the Homeland Security, what Zavala did was crystal clear.

“Jose Luis Savala Ramirez was encountered by CBP in 2002 and agreed to return to Mexico rather than face a final order of removal or other penalties,” said Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at DHS Tricia McLaughlin said at the time. “He then illegally entered the country again and in 2006 he was encountered by CBP with falsified immigration documents. Ramirez has a Felony DUI conviction from 2005, but California dangerously created a program in 2021 to dismiss these to prevent conviction as criteria for removal.“

While immigration advocates caution that undocumented immigrants are more deportable if they have a conviction, immigrants have indeed benefited from state laws that dismiss convictions under certain circumstances.

In 2017, California Penal Code §1473.7 took effect, erasing the adverse impacts that very old convictions can have on people.

People could vacate an old conviction or sentence if newly discovered evidence proved their innocence; if it was brought over racial or ethnic prejudice or bias; or if there was prejudicial error damaging an accused person’s “ability to meaningfully understand, defend against, or knowingly accept the actual or potential adverse immigration consequences of a conviction or sentence.”

Echoing the Department of Homeland Security stance, agency attorneys have argued that convictions vacated under the state’s law remain “convictions” for immigration purposes.

About a week after the arrest, Murillo would learn that her husband was being transferred out of L.A. to the detention center in El Paso, Texas.

The uncertainty heightened, now so many miles away.

Expansion of federal rule casts shadow

More uncertainty would come.

That’s when Todd M. Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, wrote employees on July 8 that the agency was revisiting its “extraordinarily broad and equally complex” authority to detain people. It was effective immediately, meaning people would be ineligible for a bond hearing before an immigration judge. Instead, now, they cannot be released unless the Homeland Security Department makes an exception.

The directive, first reported by The Washington Post, signaled a wider use of a 1996 law to detain people who had previously been allowed to remain free while their cases wind through immigration court.

He told officers that immigrants should be detained “for the duration of their removal proceedings.” The action was a huge hit to those fighting deportation, because, according to immigration lawyers, those proceedings could take months or years and could effect millions.

Zavala was among those millions. His attorney, Arturo Burga, knowing his client, Zavala, was requesting a bond hearing at the El Paso federal hub after weeks in detention, was getting worried.

“Yeah. I definitely was concerned. I went from very confident, to ‘oh no. I hope they don’t mention that.”

The July 15 hearing in front a Department of Justice administrative law judge would be a pivotal moment. At stake was whether Zavala could walk out on $5,000 bond. If he loses, he stays in and the government would gain a victory in efforts to deport him.  If he wins, the outlook is bright – as release could help him fight in his deportation proceedings – a defense against deportation, his attorney said.

For Burga, the ICE memo was a jolt, despite confidence his client had a strong case.

“I’m like, ‘what is going on? This is going to be so hard to overcome.”

Traditionally, at least in California, clients who were not a threat were released on bond, and could continue their deportation proceedings, with their attorneys and families, all outside of the confines of a federal detention center.

But the government — nationalizing an approach said to become a growing practice among some immigration judges in the nation to jail people for prolonged prolonged periods – appeared intent on doubling down, even on folks who many said are not the hardened criminals — the “worst of the worst” — that officials pledged to deport.

Asked by the Associated Press last week to comment on the memo, McLaughlin said. “The Biden administration dangerously unleashed millions of unvetted illegal aliens into the country — and they used many loopholes to do so. President (Donald) Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem are now enforcing this law as it was actually written to keep America safe.”

The initiative would apply to anyone who crossed the border illegally, and to people who have lived in the country for years, even decades.

But even in the shadow of the Lyons memo, Murillo, back in Pomona, held on to a semblance of faith.

Good news, bad news, 48 hours

Lyons wrote in his memo that detention was entirely within ICE’s discretion, but he acknowledged a legal challenge was likely. For that reason, he told ICE attorneys to continue gathering evidence to argue for detention before an immigration judge, including potential danger to the community and flight risk.

It would come back to Zavala’s case.

On Tuesday, Murillo and her family were preparing for a reunion. Yes, they would reunite with a visibly thinner Jose Luis Zavala, aged by weeks inside two federal detention centers thousands of miles away from each other.

Nevertheless, she and her family could taste the moment when Zavala would hug is 11-year-old again. They were counting the moments until he could see the signs they’d made for his return.

“Bienvenido para de nuevo a casa”! Welcome back home.

Only one thing needed to happen: The Texas judge had to sign off on releasing him on the $5,000 bond. Only then could he get on a plane and go home.

Murillo stayed back home, but two of their eldest children flew to El Paso. Their mission, their hope: Bring their father back.

But this wouldn’t be easy. They’d have to endure a “redetermination” hearing, where government attorneys would bear down, bringing the legal might of a powerful push to deport millions of immigrants, fueled by a president’s pledge to deport the “worst of the worst” and the countless depictions of rapists, the gang members, the murderers.

Zavala felt the full brunt of that might as Department of Homeless Security attorneys focused on his past. But it was a past that been cleared. The DUI charge that the government keyed in on had long been dismissed, Burga said.

According to Burga, the government did not mention the the memo in its arguments — “luckily,” he said.

Burga said the conviction has been dismissed.

The bond hearing happened at 9 a.m. Tuesday. By 11 a.m., the judge had ruled in Zavala’s favor. He would be released on $5,000 bond.

For an anxious family, it was a first moment of pure joy since before June 18, the day when Zavala was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while he was on a job in La Mirada.

“Honestly, we just started celebrating and crying and hugging each other,” Murillo said of the moment the family got word. “Our first reaction was ‘thank God for this.”

Bad news Wednesday

The next day, the reverberations of the government’s expansive policy appeared to be playing out, deflating Murillo’s hopes for her husband’s release.

As Murillo’s daughter worked to finalize the release on the ground in El Paso, she hit a glitch. She had to go online to pay the bond, a practice Zavala’s lawyer said the government is making “everybody” do now. The request bounced back — denied.

According to family and the lawyer, the government had “reserved” the case for appeal.

“In the same way we we so happy the day before, we were back to ‘why are they doing this to us,” Murillo said. “We went back to square one, basically. What’s the point of having a bond, if you can’t get released.”

Because of the government’s intent to appeal, Zavala would stay in custody, at least for 30 more days. If they don’t appeal in that window, he’ll be released in mid August. If the government does appeal, the case will be decided by the Board of Immigration Appeals, an administrative body within the Department of Justice that interprets and applies immigration laws.

That process could take weeks, months, even a year, Burga said.

‘Worst of the Worst’

Zavala’s case is another that has shined a harsh light on the administration’s “worst of the worst” pledge.

Murillo has always acknowledged that back in the early 2000s, her husband initially crossed illegally. She also acknowledged he once had a DUI on his record, back in 2005. But while he was once detained on a charge of DUI, that charge and case was dismissed by a court, Gordo said, adding that he has no criminal record.

But worst of the worst?

“Not everyone of the people detained are criminals,” Burga said. “Mr. Zavala, his record was clean. It’s just the simple fact that he appeared undocumented was the simple reason he got detained.

“I think they are just trying to find different methods of finding their goal of mass deportation,” he said.

• Also See: Nearly 2,800 undocumented immigrants have been detained in LA area since early June, DHS says

But McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, has called the assessment that ICE isn’t targeting immigrants with a criminal record “false” and said that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has directed ICE “to target the worst of the worst — including gang members, murderers, and rapists.”

She counted detainees with convictions, as well as those with pending charges, as “criminal illegal aliens.”

The latest ICE statistics show that as of June 29, there were 57,861 people detained by ICE, 41,495 — 71.7% of whom had no criminal convictions. That includes 14,318 people with pending criminal charges and 27,177 who are subject to immigration enforcement, but have no known criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.

Each detainee is assigned a threat level by ICE on a scale of 1 to 3, with one being the highest. Those without a criminal record are classified as having “no ICE threat level.” As of June 23, the latest data available, 84% of people detained at 201 facilities nationwide were not given a threat level. Another 7% had been graded as a level 1 threat, 4% were level 2 and 5% were level 3.

“The government appears to be doing everything in its power to try to jail people under the authority of the immigration laws,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, professor of practice and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law.

But the rhetoric is not matching reality, he said.

“Citizens get DUIs and they then receive whatever punishment the criminal legal system deems appropriate,” Arulanantham said. “Nobody is more dangerous because of where they were born. So the basic concept that we need to engage in immigration enforcement to make us safer is kind of at war with the way we know the criminal justice systems works at the most basic level.”

Arulanantham said the majority of people being arrested in this wave of enforcement operations are people who do not have a conviction, or who have minor convictions.

“Given that the Trump administration is saying over and over again that we’re going against the worst of the worst, touting alleged arrests of people with criminal histories in their past … it’s important to note they are not telling the truth about that,” he said.

“That someone committed a DUI 20 years ago does not mean they have to be deported now to make us safe. That makes no sense.”

‘Another waiting game’

Back in Pomona, Murillo reeled from the emotional rollercoaster of a month of starts and stops.

She has hope in her husband’s case and that the judge’s decision will stand. But it’s mixed with concern that the government will find something, some morsel of a blemish that would enable them to deport her husband.

“It’s like another waiting game,” she said. “That’s a whole month to gather information… to look for stuff against him, I really doubt they are going to find. They know he has a possibility to win a case. I’m just scared. They could, out of nowhere, find something and put stuff on his case that could effect him.”

Her 11-year-old appears to be taking the brunt of it emotionally. Murillo said she had to take her to the emergency room about a week after the arrest for a condition that appeared to start with anxiety.

“I have to have the mentality to stay strong for them, but also for him,” she reminds herself, referring to her family.

They are able to talk to Zavala.

The theme in their conversations: “He’s gonna stay strong for us, and hopefully he will be released and we can bring him home.”

For now, the reunion will have to wait.

“We were ready to have a little gathering with the family,” she said. “Make some food for him. My daughter had made big posters of “Welcome Back Daddy. We missed you!”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

County officials said they were responding to reports and growing concerns over Immigration and Customs Enforcement accessing sensitive information obtained from Medicaid or Medi-Cal data.

The Associated Press reported on Thursday that a data-sharing agreement would give ICE agents access to the personal data of 79 million people enrolled in Medicaid. Signed between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Homeland Security, the agreement, which has not been announced publicly, would help in tracking down the location of undocumented immigrants.

The county HCA said in its statement that the possible access raised “serious concerns about the privacy and security of protected health information entrusted to public health systems,” but urged patients not to disenroll from Medi-Cal. Any data previously submitted to state or federal systems would not be erased by unenrolling, OC officials warned.

“The HCA is actively engaging with state and federal partners to assess the scope of this issue and to understand any potential impact to patients under our care,” the county statement said.

Data obtained by ICE could include personal and medical information, residential addresses, and ethnicities. The agency said certain Medicaid data must be submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under federal and state laws.

“We recognize that this issue may cause fear or uncertainty among patients and families who are seeking care. We want to reassure our community that the HCA’s mission is rooted in providing equitable, respectful, and confidential care to all residents of Orange County,” county officials said. “We remain firmly committed to protecting public trust and upholding the privacy rights of every person we serve.”

On Thursday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office was “moving quickly to secure a court order” that would block the sharing of Medicaid data for immigration enforcement.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says bases in Indiana and New Jersey can house detained immigrants without affecting military readiness — a step toward potentially detaining thousands of people on bases on U.S. soil.

Hegseth notified members of Congress from both states this week of the proposal to temporarily house detained immigrants at Camp Atterbury in Indiana, and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.

President Donald Trump has moved to aggressively detain and deport people in the country illegally, a push that has swept up large numbers of immigrants, including many with no prior criminal records, and forced federal authorities to find places to house them.

Hegseth said the presence of the detainees would not negatively affect the bases’ operations or training. Officials have not said when detainees could begin arriving at the facilities or if other military bases are under consideration.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said there are about 60,000 beds currently available for detained immigrants and the goal is to expand to 100,000.

“We’re looking for any available bed space we can get that meets the detention standards we’re accustomed to,” Homan said Friday. “The faster we get the beds, the more people we can take off the street.”

Democratic lawmakers from both states and civil rights advocates condemned the idea of housing immigrants at the bases, questioning the impact on military resources and the justification for so many detentions.

“Using our country’s military to detain and hold undocumented immigrants jeopardizes military preparedness and paves the way for (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids in every New Jersey community,” New Jersey’s Democratic delegation said in a statement.

Democratic Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana said his questions about detainee conditions have gone unanswered by the Trump administration.

He cited concerns raised about conditions at other facilities and said, “The fact that ICE has detained so many individuals that they now need to expand detention space in Indiana is disturbing.”

Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said in a statement that housing immigrants in military facilities sets a dangerous precedent “and is contrary to the values embedded in our Constitution.”

Both of the bases identified by Hegseth have housed Afghan or Ukrainian refugees in recent years.

During Trump’s first administration, he authorized the use of military bases to detain immigrant children — including Army installations at Fort Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas.

In 2014, President Barack Obama temporarily relied on military bases to detain immigrant children while ramping up privately operated family detention centers to hold many of the tens of thousands of Central American families who crossed the border.

Associated Press writers Christine Fernando and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela released 10 jailed Americans on Friday in exchange for getting home scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, officials said.

The complex, three-country arrangement represents a diplomatic achievement for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, helps President Donald Trump in his goal of bringing home Americans jailed abroad and lands Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele a swap that he proposed months ago.

“Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement in which he thanked Bukele, a Trump ally.

Bukele said El Salvador had handed over all the Venezuelan nationals in its custody. Maduro described Friday as “a day of blessings and good news for Venezuela.” He called it “the perfect day for Venezuela.”

Venezuelans leave El Salvador’s mega-prison

Central to the deal are more than 250 Venezuelan migrants freed by El Salvador, which in March agreed to a $6 million payment from the Trump administration to house them in its notorious prison.

That arrangement drew immediate blowback when Trump invoked an 18th century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to quickly remove the men that his administration had accused of belonging to the violent Tren de Aragua street gang, teeing up a legal fight that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The administration did not provide evidence to back up those claims.

The Venezuelans have been held in a mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, which was built to hold alleged gang members in Bukele’s war on the country’s gangs. Human rights groups have documented hundreds of deaths as well as cases of torture inside its walls.

Lawyers have little access to those in the prison, which is heavily guarded, and information has been locked tight, other than heavily produced state propaganda videos showing tattooed men packed behind bars.

Photos and videos released by El Salvador’s government on Friday showed shackled Venezuelans sitting in a fleet of buses and boarding planes surrounded by officers in riot gear. One man looked up and pointed toward the sky as he climbed aboard a plane, while another made an obscene gesture toward police.

After arriving in Venezuela, some of the migrants crossed themselves, cried and hugged one another. They wore face masks and street clothes.

Maduro alleged that some of them were subjected to various forms of abuse at the Salvadoran prison, and one of them even lost a kidney “due to the beatings he received.”

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello told reporters the men would undergo medical tests and background checks before they can go home.

In April, in a heated exchange of diplomatic letters with Venezuela, Bukele proposed exchanging the Venezuelans for the same number of what he called “political prisoners” held by Maduro. It provoked a harsh response from Venezuelan authorities, who called his comments “cynical” and referred to Bukele as a “neofascist.”

Families say the Americans released are innocent

The State Department office responsible for negotiating the release of American detainees posted a photo Friday evening of the newly released prisoners smiling for the camera inside an airplane bringing them home, some clutching an unfurled American flag.

Among those released was 37-year-old Lucas Hunter, whose family says he was kidnapped in January by Venezuelan border guards from inside Colombia, where he was vacationing.

“We cannot wait to see him in person and help him recover from the ordeal,” his younger sister Sophie Hunter said.

Venezuelan authorities detained nearly a dozen U.S. citizens in the second half of 2024 and linked them to alleged plots to destabilize the country.

“We have prayed for this day for almost a year. My brother is an innocent man who was used as a political pawn by the Maduro regime,” said a statement from Christian Casteneda, whose brother Wilbert, a Navy SEAL, was arrested in his Caracas hotel room last year.

Global Reach, a nonprofit organization that had advocated for his release and that of several other Americans, said Venezuelan officials initially and falsely accused him of being involved in a coup but backed off that claim.

The three-country swap gives Maduro a boost

The release of the Venezuelans, meanwhile, is an invaluable win for Maduro as he presses his efforts to assert himself as president despite credible evidence that he lost reelection last year.

Long accused of human rights abuses, Maduro for months has used the migrants’ detention in El Salvador to flip the script on the U.S. government, forcing even some of his strongest political opponents to agree with his condemnation of the migrants’ treatment.

Their return will allow Maduro to reaffirm support within his shrinking base, while demonstrating that even if the Trump administration and other nations see him as an illegitimate president, he is still firmly in power.

Just a week ago, the U.S. State Department reiterated its policy of shunning Maduro government officials and recognizing only the National Assembly elected in 2015 as the legitimate government of the country. Signed by Rubio, the cable said U.S. officials are free to meet and have discussions with National Assembly members “but cannot engage with Maduro regime representatives unless cleared by the Department of State.”

Maduro’s crackdown on dissent spurs detentions

The Americans were among dozens of people, including activists, opposition members and union leaders, that Venezuela’s government took into custody in its brutal campaign to crack down on dissent in the 11 months since Maduro claimed to win reelection.

Besides the U.S., several other Western nations also do not recognize Maduro’s claim to victory. They instead point to tally sheets collected by the opposition coalition showing that its candidate, Edmundo González, won the July 2024 election by a more than a two-to-one margin.

The dispute over results prompted immediate protests, and the government responded by detaining more than 2,000 people, mostly poor young men. González fled into exile in Spain to avoid arrest.

More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have migrated since 2013, when its oil-dependent economy came undone and Maduro became president. Most settled in Latin America and the Caribbean, but after the COVID-19 pandemic, many saw the U.S. as their best chance to improve their living conditions.

The US and Venezuela have agreed on other releases

Despite the U.S. not recognizing Maduro, the two governments have carried out other recent exchanges.

In May, Venezuela freed a U.S. Air Force veteran after about six months in detention. Scott St. Clair’s family has said the language specialist, who served four tours in Afghanistan, had traveled to South America to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Three months earlier, six other Americans whom the U.S. government considered wrongfully detained in Venezuela were released after Richard Grenell, Trump’s envoy for special missions, met with Maduro at the presidential palace.

Grenell, during the meeting in Caracas, urged Maduro to take back deported migrants who have committed crimes in the U.S. Hundreds of Venezuelans have since been deported to their home country, including 251 people, including seven children, who arrived Friday.

Maduro’s government had accused the Trump administration of “kidnapping” the children by placing them in foster care after their parents were deported.

Tucker reported from Washington and Janetsky from Mexico City. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Seung Min Kim in Washington and photographer Salvador Melendez in San Salvador, El Salvador, contributed to this report.

BOSTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship for the children of people who are in the U.S. illegally will remain blocked as an order from one judge went into effect Friday and another seemed inclined to follow suit.

U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante in New Hampshire had paused his own decision to allow for the Trump administration to appeal, but with no appeal filed in the last week his order went into effect.

“The judge’s order protects every single child whose citizenship was called into question by this illegal executive order,” Cody Wofsy, the ACLU attorney representing children who would be affected by Trump’s restrictions, said. “The government has not appealed and has not sought emergency relief so this injunction is now in effect everywhere in the country.”

The Trump administration could still appeal or even ask that LaPlante’s order be narrowed but the effort to end birthright citizenship for children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally or temporarily can’t take effect for now.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.

Meanwhile, a judge in Boston heard arguments from more than a dozen states who say Trump’s birthright citizenship order is blatantly unconstitutional and threatens millions of dollars for essential services. The issue is expected to move quickly back to the nation’s highest court.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin was asked to consider either keeping in place the nationwide injunction he granted earlier or consider a request from the government either to narrow the scope of that order or stay it altogether. Sorokin, located in Boston, did not immediately rule but seemed to be receptive to arguments from states to keep the injunction in place.

Lawyers for the government had argued Sorokin should narrow the reach of his earlier ruling granting a preliminary injunction, arguing it should be “tailored to the States’ purported financial injuries.”

Much of the hearing was focused on what a narrower ruling would look like. The plaintiffs raised concerns that some alternatives floated by the Trump administration — such as giving children in states impacted by the birthright citizenship order social security numbers, but not citizenship — would be costly and unworkable.

They said such a system would burden these states with having to set up new administrative systems, sow confusion among the parents whose children are impacted and possibly turn these states into magnets for families from other states looking to access the benefits.

Government lawyers didn’t seem tied to any one alternative, but told Sorokin the scope of his injunction should be limited. When pressed on how they would do that, a lawyer for the government, Eric Hamilton, would only commit to complying with whatever order was issued.

“If the court modifies the preliminary injunction or stays the preliminary injunction, it should be at most tailored to injuries plaintiffs are alleging which are primary financial,” Hamilton said.

Sorokin pushed back, at one point using an analogy of someone who sued a neighbor over loud music. The defendant offers to build a wall to limit the noise but Sorokin wondered how they could ensure it met the zoning code and was something the defendant could afford.

“What you are telling me is we will do it but, in response to my question, you have no answer how you will do it,” Sorokin said.

LaPlante issued the ruling last week p rohibiting Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action lawsuit, and a Maryland-based judge said this week that she would do the same if an appeals court signed off.

The justices ruled last month that lower courts generally can’t issue nationwide injunctions, but it didn’t rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The Supreme Court did not decide whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional.

At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. That decision found that Scott, an enslaved man, wasn’t a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was outlawed.

The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Five immigrants deported by the United States to the small southern African nation of Eswatini under the Trump administration’s third-country program are being held in solitary confinement in various prisons for an undetermined time, a government spokesperson said.

Thabile Mdluli, the Eswatini government spokesperson, declined to identify the correctional facilities where the five men are, citing security concerns. She said they were being held in solitary confinement away from other inmates.

She added that Eswatini planned to ultimately repatriate the five to their home countries with the help of a United Nations agency. Mdluli told The Associated Press it wasn’t clear how long that would take.

The men, who the U.S. says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the U.S. illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos. Their convictions included murder and child rape, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said, describing them as “uniquely barbaric.”

They had been jailed in the U.S. before being sent to Eswatini, according to Mdluli.

Their deportations were announced by Homeland Security on Tuesday and mark the continuation of President Donald Trump’s plan to send deportees to third countries they have no ties with after it was stalled by a legal challenge in the United States.

A new country for deportees

Eswatini, a country of 1.2 million people bordering South Africa, is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the U.S. The Trump administration has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, and deported eight men earlier this month to South Sudan, also an African country.

The deportees to South Sudan are citizens of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan. They were held for weeks in a converted shipping container at a U.S. military base in the nearby country of Djibouti until a Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for them to be finally sent to South Sudan. The U.S. also described them as violent criminals.

Eswatini’s government confirmed on Wednesday that the latest five deportees were in its custody after landing on a deportation plane from the U.S.

Local media had reported they were all held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex near the administrative capital of Mbabane when they arrived. The complex includes Eswatini’s top maximum-security prison. It wasn’t clear if some of the men were still there.

The men’s fate is unclear

The Eswatini government said the men are considered to be “in transit” and will eventually be sent to their home countries. The U.S. and Eswatini governments would work with the U.N. migration agency to do that, it said.

The U.N. agency — the International Organization for Migration or IOM — said it was not involved in the operation and has not been approached to assist in the matter but would be willing to help “in line with its humanitarian mandate.”

Eswatini’s statement that the men would be sent home was in contrast to U.S. claims they were sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them back.

It’s unclear how sending the men to Eswatini would make it easier for them to be deported home. There was also no timeframe for that as it depends on several factors, including engagements with the IOM, Mdluli said.

“We are not yet in a position to determine the timelines for the repatriation,” she wrote.

Four of the five countries where the men are from have historically resisted taking back some of their citizens deported from the U.S., which has been a reoccurring problem for Homeland Security. Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the administration was happy the men were “off of American soil” when she announced their deportations.

It’s also not clear if the men are being represented by lawyers.

Another secretive deal

There have been no details on why Eswatini agreed to take the men and Mdluli, the government spokesperson, said “the terms of the agreement between the U.S. and Eswatini remain classified.”

Eswatini has said it was the result of months of negotiations between the two governments. South Sudan has also given no details of its agreement with the U.S. to take deportees and has declined to say where the eight men sent there are being held.

Some analysts say African nations might be willing to take deportees from the U.S. in return for more favorable relations with the Trump administration, which has cut foreign aid to poor countries and threatened them with trade tariffs.

The Trump administration has also said it’s seeking more deportation deals with other countries.

Rights groups have questioned the countries the U.S. has chosen to deal with, as South Sudan and Eswatini have both been criticized for having repressive governments.

Eswatini is Africa’s only absolute monarchy, meaning the king has power over government and rules by decree. Political parties are banned and pro-democracy protests have been quelled violently in the past.

Several rights groups have criticized Eswatini since pro-democracy protests erupted there in 2021, citing deadly crackdowns by security forces and abusive conditions in prisons, including at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, where pro-democracy activists are held.

Associated Press writers Mogomotsi Magome and Michelle Gumede in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

Attorneys representing migrant children who were abused, neglected or abandoned by a parent asked a federal court on Thursday to restore their deportation protections after the Trump administration ended them.

The lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of New York, was filed on behalf of nine young people and their legal advocates who want a judge to keep the protections for up to nearly 150,000 beneficiaries.

“These young people have survived abuse, abandonment, and neglect only to be retraumatized now by the constant threat of detention and deportation from the same agencies that vowed to keep them safe,” said Rachel Davidson, plaintiff attorney with the National Immigration Project.

The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services were both named in the lawsuit. USCIS Spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser said, “As a matter of practice, USCIS does not comment on pending litigation.” DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Migrant children who suffered parental abuse, neglect or abandonment are designated through state courts and the federal government with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, which was created by Congress in 1990 with bipartisan support.

SIJS, as it is known, does not grant legal status. But it lets qualifying young people apply for a visa to become legal permanent residents and obtain a work permit. It can take years for a visa to become available due to annual caps. In 2022, the Biden administration allowed children to be shielded from deportation while waiting for a visa.

In June, the Trump administration ended deportation protection for SIJS beneficiaries. Without it, they can still wait in the U.S. for a visa but cannot receive work authorization. And if they are deported while they are waiting, they will no longer be eligible to become legal permanent residents.

Though overshadowed by higher-profile moves to end birthright citizenship and halt asylum at the border, the policy shift is part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration system overhaul intended to make it more difficult for people to legally remain in the U.S.

“I felt that I was finally in a safe environment, but if I had to return to (Guatemala), I would be very afraid of the violence and abuse from my mother and father,” she said in a statement shared by the attorneys without her name.

The policy shift may shut down a legal pathway to possible citizenship for nearly 150,000 migrants who attorneys estimate have received this classification and are stuck in the visa backlog.

It could keep them from obtaining Social Security cards, driver’s licenses, medical treatment, health insurance, higher education, bank accounts, and, for older youth, legal and safe employment opportunities.

By FRED SHUSTER  | City News Service

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Thursday denied a request by government attorneys for a stay of her ruling last week barring immigration agents from detaining people without reasonable suspicion beyond their race, ethnicity or occupation.

The government had filed a notice of its plan to appeal the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and wanted U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong to put her ruling on pause pending that appeal. The 9th Circuit earlier this week also declined to issue a stay, since Frimpong had not yet ruled on the request.

In denying the stay on Thursday, Frimpong said the government hasn’t shown that it will suffer any harm from the restraining orders she issued last week and because “the federal government did not follow the rules for making this request.”

The judge also denied a request from Southland cities that want to formally participate in the case for an expedited hearing on the matter. A hearing is currently set next month to discuss the proposed intervenors’ request.

Frimpong set a briefing schedule for the individuals and organizations that brought the lawsuit July 2 to file their arguments on whether the court should issue a preliminary injunction order, which would last longer than the temporary restraining orders the court already issued.

The judge set a hearing for Sept. 24 in downtown Los Angeles.

A message seeking comment from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was not immediately answered after regular business hours.

In their emergency motion lodged with the appellate court for a stay pending appeal, government attorneys argued the ruling places “coercive restraints on lawful immigration enforcement affecting every immigration stop and detention.”

The lawyers contend the judge’s injunction is a “straight-jacket” inflicting “irreparable harm” by preventing President Donald Trump “from ensuring that immigration laws are enforced.”

The ruling levels “systemic challenges to federal immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area,” according to the appeal.

Frimpong’s ruling came in response to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles federal court by Public Counsel, the American Civil Liberties Union and attorneys representing Southern California residents, workers and advocacy groups on behalf of people who allege they were unlawfully stopped or detained by federal agents targeting locations where immigrant workers are traditionally hired.

It accused immigration officials of carrying out “roving patrols” and detaining people without warrants and regardless of whether they have actual proof they are in the country legally.

It further alleged federal agencies, including DHS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, engaged in unconstitutional and unlawful immigration enforcement raids by targeting Angelenos based on their perceived race and ethnicity and denying detainees constitutionally mandated due process.

U.S. officials have strongly denied those claims.

“A district judge is undermining the will of the American people. America’s brave men and women are removing murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles, rapists — truly the worst of the worst from Golden State communities. LAW AND ORDER WILL PREVAIL!” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said.

White House border czar Tom Homan also criticized the order.

“Look, we’re going to litigate that order, because I think the order’s wrong. I mean, she’s (Frimpong) assuming that the officers don’t have reasonable suspicion. They don’t need probable cause to briefly detain and question somebody. They just need reasonable suspicion. And that’s based on many articulable facts,” Homan told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.

They appeared in plain clothes outside a San Diego hotel, wore camouflage as they raided a Los Angeles factory and arrived with military gear at a Ventura County farm.

The presence of thousands of hard-to-identify federal agents is a new fact of life in Southern California this summer as the Trump administration carries out the president’s promised deportations.

Many residents may assume these masked agents are officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But that’s not always the case.

Many of them belong to the Border Patrol, the agency that traditionally has policed the nation’s border with Mexico. But the Trump administration sent officers from other agencies to Los Angeles, too, including the FBI and special tactical teams from the Department of Homeland Security not widely seen until now.

Democrats in California’s Legislature have proposed measures to unmask the federal agents.

Senate Bill 627, the “No Secret Police Act,” seeks to prohibit all local, state and federal officers from using masks with some exceptions. SB 805, the “No Vigilantes Act,” would require that officers clearly display their name or badge number. It’s disputed whether the state can regulate federal officers and law enforcement agencies are lobbying against the proposals.

Federal regulations state that ICE and Border Patrol agents should identify themselves when arresting someone “as soon as it is practical and safe to do so.”

And the public is allowed to ask federal agents to identify themselves.

But David Levine, a professor at UC Law San Francisco said, “they can ask but it doesn’t mean they’ll get the information.”

The number of sweeps and detentions appeared to slow this week after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order, finding that agents stopped people based on someone’s race, language, accent, presence at a specific location or job. For ensuing stops, agents must have “reasonable suspicion” that doesn’t consider those factors “alone or in combination,” according to the judge’s order.

While ICE is a different agency than Border Patrol, both are part of the Department of Homeland Security and carry out immigration enforcement.

The difference may not always matter much, but misidentifying an agency can confuse the public, as it did with the sighting of federal agents outside Dodger Stadium in June. The agents reportedly had no visible names or badges and attempted to enter the stadium’s parking lots. The Dodgers put out a statement that “ICE agents” had been denied entry to the stadium. ICE denied it was ever there; the Department of Homeland Security then clarified that it had been Customs and Border Protection agents at the venue.

Images on social media show a constellation of federal agencies supporting immigration sweeps in Southern California. Here’s how you can identify them.

Border Patrol far from the border

Border Patrol agents often wear green uniforms and “Border Patrol” and “U.S. Customs and Border Protection” might be labeled on their badge, vest, shoulder, back, bucket hat or cap, and usually in yellow text over blue.

Their marked vehicles tend to be white with a green slash, reading “Border Patrol” on the side.

Some might confuse Border Patrol with Customs and Border Protection officers. Those officials wear blue and usually stay stationed at ports of entry.

You may be wondering why Border Patrol agents are conducting immigration operations deep into Los Angeles neighborhoods, rather than staying closer to the border.

Border Patrol agents can search vehicles without a warrant throughout much of the country. They’re allowed to operate 100 miles from any edge of the country and coastline, reaching roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population, according to a CalMatters investigation and documentary produced in partnership with Evident and Bellingcat.

Since its creation by Congress in 1924, the Border Patrol’s role has been to prevent unauthorized entry into the United States. The agency polices trade, narcotics, contraband and combats human trafficking.

The agency has a SWAT-like unit known as BORTAC, or Border Patrol Tactical Unit, which has also been documented in immigrant hubs such as MacArthur Park, Los Angeles’ Toy District, and Bell. Border Patrol sources describe the unit’s use for “high-risk” purposes.

In fatigues, the unit wears a “BORTAC” patch on the left shoulder with, at times, black undershirts.

Customs and Border Protection also deployed its tactical Special Response Team in Los Angeles’ North Hills late June, executing a federal search warrant at a “human smuggling hub” tied to national security threats, arresting two, according to the agency.

ICE in police vests

ICE agents might wear an “ICE” patch on the front or back of their vest, usually in black-and-white, though they also can carry a badge of the same design in gold. The ICE emblem features the U.S. Department of Homeland Security eagle seal.

ICE agents might display “police” on their uniform. The ACLU wants ICE to stop using the word “police” on uniforms, contending the agency is impersonating local law enforcement officers

After 9/11, the Bush administration created the Department of Homeland Security, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement within it shortly thereafter. ICE is tasked with enforcing trade and immigration laws, including within the interior of the country.

The Cato Institute found that ICE booked over 200,000 people into detention between October 1 and June 14. More than 93% of book-ins had no violent conviction and 65% had no criminal conviction whatsoever.

ICE itself has a few enforcement divisions. That’s why some ICE uniforms might read ERO—part of their “Enforcement and Removal Operations” team—or HSI for “Homeland Security Investigations.”

In 2024, ICE launched a rebrand and created the investigations unit to develop cases, and improve public outreach, including with local law enforcement, an HSI official told ABC News.

According to its website, HSI combats a broad array of transnational-related crime, ranging from narcotics smuggling to cybercrime, and from human trafficking to intellectual property theft.

ERO meanwhile manages all aspects of the typical immigration enforcement process: identifying, arresting, GPS monitoring, and deporting unauthorized immigrants. Their site description also says they seek to deport priority undocumented immigrants after they are released from U.S. jails and prisons. They can also assist multi-agency task forces in arresting unauthorized immigrants without any other criminal history who are “deemed a threat to public safety.”

ICE also deployed its Special Response Team (SRT), decked in military wear and weaponry, in San Diego late May. It sent a dozen or more of those officers to the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet near southeast Los Angeles in June, detaining two people for deportation.

Agents from those teams will often feature their logo on the shoulder and will be seen in heavy military-like uniforms. The teams are meant to engage “high risk” situations, according to ICE.

Rare National Guard deployment

National Guard troops had been most visible outside a federal building during protests in downtown Los Angeles, but have also accompanied a few immigration enforcement operations. In mid-June, National Guard soldiers accompanied federal agents raiding marijuana farms around Thermal, a desert town near Coachella, where about 70 undocumented immigrants were arrested, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

On July 7, about 90 California National Guard soldiers swept through the Los Angeles immigrant hub of MacArthur Park, a defense official said, to protect immigration agents from potentially hostile crowds, according to the Associated Press. They also were on site in Carpinteria last week.

The National Guard troops in L.A. wear Army uniforms. Soldiers in the state units have patches on their left shoulder that show a raven, a sunburst, or a sunburst on top a diamond, each in black and green color schemes. Troops will also have a full color U.S. flag on the right shoulder. The patch under that, if any, can vary and may be based on a soldier’s past deployments.

Part of the U.S. military, the National Guard is able to serve both domestically and globally for state and federal duties, assisting with natural disasters, border security, civil unrest, overseas combat, counter-drug efforts and more. Soldiers largely stay in their home state and can be called on by the state governor or president.

Gov. Gavin Newsom opposed President Trump’s decision to send the troops to Los Angeles, and the assignment marked the first time that a president has deployed the National Guard over the objections of a governor since the Civil Rights era.

More federal law enforcement officers

In January, a Homeland Security memo called for Justice Department agents to carry out immigration enforcement, according to ABC News. Deputized bureaus include the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), the U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Prisons receiving the “same authority already granted to the FBI.”

Officers’ affiliations can be seen on their vests, jackets, or at times, their shoulder patches.

Agents wearing FBI fatigues were most visible in the worksite sweep at Ambiance Apparel in LA’s Fashion District, arguably the first major operation of the current wave of raids.

On June 10, FBI Los Angeles’ X account touted its collaboration with an ICE operation in Ventura County. They have also participated in other immigration raids across the country.

A spokesperson with the Justice Department declined to comment on how it deployed agents from various agencies. In early June, the FBI told KTLA that it is participating in immigration enforcement in Los Angeles and nationwide “as directed by the Attorney General,” supporting with SWAT, intelligence and more.

The ATF was also seen at the Ambiance Apparel raid. The DEA was there, too, and has since collaborated with ICE in the region.

On X, U.S. Marshals touted themselves as “on the front lines of immigration enforcement” in Los Angeles while showing officers interviewing a man on a bike. Marshals were also on site at a Ventura County marijuana farm raid where more than 200 people were arrested.

Can California unmask federal agents?

The use of masked agents without clearly identifying uniforms has confused the public, including local police receiving reports of kidnappings.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta warned in March that reports of ICE impersonations were growing. Alleged federal agent impersonations have occurred in Huntington Park, Wisconsin, Philadelphia and elsewhere.

“We don’t even know who these people are. It’s so dangerous, it’s so horrific, and it’s time to put standards in place,” said Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who is backing two proposals that would compel law enforcement officers to go without masks and display identification.

The Trump administration maintains that the masks are necessary to protect officers’ identities as they carry out investigations.

“So, I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line and their family on the line because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” said acting ICE Director Todd Lyons in a press conference early June.

And some law enforcement experts say the federal government has that authority.

“Certain legislators are giving a false sense of hope that California can legislate laws to control the practices of federal agents,” said Ed Obayashi, a longtime sheriff’s deputy in California and policy adviser to the Modoc County Sheriff’s Office.

“They cannot do that—bottom line. Plain and simple. Federal law is supreme.”

Acknowledging potential legal disputes, Wiener said he’s willing to test the “time-sensitive” bills in the courts.“Federal employees can’t just come in and ignore all California laws,” he said. “There are laws that they have to follow.”