U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are barred from identifying themselves as local police or using other “deceptive tactics” during home arrests in Southern California, under a court-approved settlement reached in a Los Angeles lawsuit, officials announced today.
The agreement approved Monday by U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II in Kidd v. Noem prohibits ICE officers from using deceptive ruses to enter a home or when asking residents to exit their homes. This includes falsely identifying themselves as state or local law enforcement, probation, parole, detectives or any other non-federal governmental agency.
It also will stop ICE officers from falsely stating they are conducting a criminal investigation or looking for someone else, conducting a probation or parole check, claiming there is a safety or legal problem with a person’s vehicle, or misrepresenting that their purpose involves danger to a resident or to public safety.
The settlement stems from a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 in Los Angeles federal court on behalf of Osny Sorto-Vasquez Kidd, a resident of Hacienda Heights and a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protection, and two community organizations: the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice and the Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights.
The agreement requires that ICE officers in the LA Field Office wear visible identifiers on their clothing prominently identifying themselves as agents of ICE whenever they are wearing any “POLICE” identifier. This will prevent ICE officers from relying solely on the “POLICE” identifiers and covering up any “ICE” identifiers, a practice that has mistakenly caused community members to believe the officers are state or local law enforcement, according to the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.
ICE’s LA Field Office covers the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.
In addition to the settlement, the plaintiffs secured a court order last year ruling that ICE officers and Homeland Security Investigations agents’ “knock and arrest” practice is unlawful. That order ruled that officers and agents may not enter the private area around a home, known as “curtilage,” without a judicial warrant or consent, with the intent to carry out a warrantless arrest of an individual.