By Rebecca St Fleur
Correspondent
Following an October immigration raid in Idaho, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a putative class action lawsuit against local, state and federal police on behalf of the families that were detained.
La Catedral, a racetrack in Wilder, Idaho frequented by Latino visitors, is where the raid occurred. According to a lawsuit press release by the ACLU, officers detained “400 spectators – including U.S. citizens and children – for four hours of detention in inhumane conditions.”
Behind the masks law enforcement wore, “parents and children were zip tied at gunpoint” and agents “shoved compliant people to the ground, forcibly dragged people out of their cars, shot rubber bullets, and threw flashbang grenades into cars that had people sitting inside.”
Once detained, they were also denied food and water.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, denounced the lawsuit, calling it an “attempt to obstruct President Trump from delivering on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of illegal aliens.”
In a statement obtained in NBC News she wrote, “The facts haven’t changed: ICE helped dismantle an illegal horse-racing, animal fighting, and a gambling enterprise operation out of a property known as [La Catedral] Arena in Wilder, Idaho and lawfully arrested more than 105 illegal aliens…ICE didn’t zip tie, restrain, or arrest any children.”
Juana Rodriguez, a United States citizen present at the raid, alleges that racial slurs were hurled at the families by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as they inflicted an “incredible amount of violence.”
Initially, a FBI spokesperson said that no “restraints or rubber bullets” were used on “children,” but later changed her statement to specify “young children” instead, according to the Associated Press.
The raid resulted in a few people being taken into custody on suspicion of illegal gambling, with over 100 others were arrested due to being assumed to be undocumented immigrants. A federal judge ordered the release of 16 detainees in November on the grounds that their due process rights were being violated by being jailed without bond.
The ACLU has filed the lawsuit on the behalf of three Latino families, who are either permanent residents or U.S. citizens. The lawsuit seeks damages, but as of now, they remain unspecified.
