WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to buy thousands of special gloves that would allow agents to administer electronic shocks — a tactic the gloves’ manufacturer describes as a non-lethal “soft empty hand” for controlling people.
But videos posted by the manufacturer, Compliant Technologies of Richmond, Ky., show that the effects of the gloves are anything but soft.
In one video, the CTG-5 G.L.O.V.E — an acronym for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter — easily brings a strapping man in military fatigues down to his knees in less than a second.
The glove caused another man’s leg muscles to spasm, although the shock, applied on a forearm, was advertised as being strictly localized.
The videos were taken at defensive weapon exhibitions all around the U.S. Frequently, the volunteers who get zapped will yelp as they collapse limply down on a soft mat.
“That sucked! That was terrible,” one man said after going through a demonstration.
“It does suck. But, it sucks a lot less than other options,” the caption from Compliant Technologies reads.
Civil rights organizations say they fear that ICE agents — who have been widely criticized for harsh tactics and fatal shootings — are being given yet another weapon for their already packed arsenal to intimidate the public.
“There is a trust in law enforcement with extreme power over human life, because you believe the people you’re entrusting are trained and they’re careful,” said Naureen Shah, director of policy and government affairs in immigration with the American Civil Liberties Union. “ICE has broken that trust with the public… the mission is simply to scare.”
According to a notice published Monday by the Department of Homeland Security, there is a plan to purchase $10 million to $20 million worth of shock gloves. The plan was first reported by the Associated Press.
John Sandweg, a former acting ICE director under the Obama administration, questioned the wisdom of equipping agents with the shock glove because the agency has seen a decline in training and oversights during the second Trump administration. (The administration has often said training of agents has not declined.)
“Given the struggles the agency’s having with use of force, to deploy a less-lethal tool, especially when you see the administration really shift their focus to the side of the non-criminal population, it raises massive concerns,” Sandweg said.
Sandweg estimates ICE could purchase 10,000 to 15,000 pairs of gloves.
When sent a list of questions about the devices, which resemble thick work gloves, Compliant Technologies declined to comment. Its website says the gloves are used by law enforcement agencies around the country.
The shock gloves deliver 380 volts, far less than the 1,200 volts typically delivered by traditional tasers, studies say. According to the company website, the glove is designed to disrupt sensory nerves without puncturing or burning the skin.
In a statement, Homeland Security defended the plan to purchase the gloves.
“Every decision is made with careful consideration and appropriately reviewed to make sure that any technology ICE utilizes is consistent with all applicable law enforcement policies and standards,” the department said. “Our officers are highly trained in de-escalation techniques.”
Equipping an agency embroiled in controversy over its occasionally fatal enforcement practices with “sci-fi” technology will likely cause the public to make further efforts to evade ICE agents, instead of becoming more compliant, said Bryanna Fox, criminology professor at the University of South Florida and former FBI agent.
“If the public doesn’t understand it and they don’t trust it, they’re not going to view it as procedurally just,” Fox said. “What they’ll have is fear; they’ll think ‘Am I going to stand there and wait for the ICE to shock me, or am I going to run?’”
On its website, Complaint Technologies says it has tested the G.L.O.V.E on people with cardiovascular problems and pacemakers with no issues. It added that the technology does not interfere at all with heart activity.
However, some civil rights advocates note that Compliant Technologies has advised against using shock gloves on pregnant women, children and people with heart issues.
Shah said she believes that intimidation played a key role in the decision to adopt G.L.O.V.E technologies, adding that their use is meant to dissuade citizens from confronting or even recording ICE agents.
“At a time like this, ICE should be trying to do everything it can to rebuild public trust, to reconstruct itself as a credible law enforcement agency,” Shah said.
Referring to Trump aid Stephen Miller, the administration’s main architect of its immigration crackdown, she added, “Instead, it is spending as many taxpayer dollars as it can, as quickly as it can, to acquire technology to make good on Stephen Miller’s dystopian vision of the United States.”
California has some of the nation’s toughest gun laws, but state lawmakers are concerned that a new technology is allowing criminals to obtain firearms by building them from scratch. By using 3-D printers, they warn, lawbreakers are able to make key components of untraceable “ghost guns” with the press of a button.
Ghost guns, which authorities say make it more difficult to investigate shootings because they lack serial numbers, have been a growing problem for law enforcement nationwide. According to federal data, the number of privately made firearms recovered in crimes surged from more than 1,600 in 2017 to nearly 27,500 in 2023. California leads the nation in recoveries over that period.
In response, legislators are seeking to mandate that all 3-D printers sold in the state come equipped with software that prohibits users from making triggers and other gun parts. A bill passed the Assembly in May and is advancing through the Senate.
But the proposal has drawn opposition from a diverse coalition, which includes civil liberties groups, tech companies and 3-D printing enthusiasts as well as Hollywood effects studios, who argue that “firearm blocking software” will also prohibit legitimate designs and expose makers to government or corporate surveillance.
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Inside a San Fernando workshop, Samuel McBride makes movie monsters come to life for the camera. One of his latest creations, an animatronic hand, clutches when he pulls a trigger that he built using a 3-D printer.
McBride says the technology has transformed the work at Legacy Effects, where he is a lab manager, but he’s worried it will soon be off-limits because of a proposed change in California law.
McBride fears the law would interfere with the making of devices like the one that activates his lifelike hand.
“If I just took apart this trigger and put it on a printer, how is anyone, computer or human, going to tell me how I intend to use it?” he asked.
Backers of the proposed law say it has the potential to help save lives.
“As gun violence continues to devastate our communities, we cannot allow 3-D printing technology to become a new pipeline for untraceable weapons,” said Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, the bill’s author.
Critics of the proposed California law note that 3-D printed guns represent a small subset of ghost guns recovered by law enforcement at crime scenes. According to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, most “privately made firearms” recovered by police are assembled from mail-order kits or unfinished parts rather than printed at home.
Jorge Perez of Monster City Studios holds a sculpture made with a large, industrial 3-D printer.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
“This fight is not over whether ghost guns are dangerous,” said David Tobin, an independent creator leading the coalition. “It is over whether the state can or should require a consumer tool to surveil a person’s designs before they are allowed to make something.”
Everytown for Gun Safety, a national nonprofit that advocates for gun control and has pushed for the passage of California’s bill, pointed to rising 3-D printed firearm recoveries across 20 major cities and warned that homemade plastic parts can help people bypass background checks or turn handguns into automatic weapons.
Krystal LoPilato, who advocates for policy at Everytown, said the group has successfully guided a similar bill through the New York state Legislature.
A handgun frame made using a 3-D printer is held for display at the office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
LoPilato said the policy aims to be proactive, rather than allowing more violence to take place before regulating the problem. Opponents counter that California already bars unlawful firearm manufacturing with 3-D printers, and that ghost gun recoveries have declined since the state adopted a series of new laws and enforcement efforts.
A June 1 letter to lawmakers, signed by a group of 3-D printing companies, stagecraft and prop-making studios and industry stakeholders, argued that AB 2047 raises 1st Amendment concerns and would harm businesses. The letter was signed by a wide variety of companies and individuals, including Prusa Research, a prominent 3-D printer manufacturer.
“To an algorithm, a gun barrel and a piece of pipe are the same grooved cylinder,” Jakub Kmošek, head of public affairs at Prusa, said in a statement to The Times. “This bill will only make it harder to build, repair, experiment, and innovate in California.”
Alan Scott, Legacy Effects’ co-founder, said 3-D printing has become central to the company’s survival in an industry where budgets are tighter and deadlines are shorter.
“Everything’s just got to be done faster these days. You don’t get to reduce the quality. We couldn’t stay in business if we weren’t 3-D printing,” Scott said.
To solve this problem, Bauer-Kahan put an entertainment industry exception in the bill, exempting “printers manufactured for and sold exclusively to entertainment industry stagecraft and propmaking studios” from the software requirement.
McBride, Legacy’s 3-D lab manager, said those printers do not really exist.
Legacy uses the same general-purpose machines available to other businesses willing to invest in the equipment, and no printers are marketed exclusively for Hollywood, he said.
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1.A 3-D printed sculpture concept at Monster City, a special effects studio in Santa Clarita.(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)2.3-D printing advocate David Tobin showcases a robotics kit at Monster City.(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
Legacy also worries about privacy. Major studios require strict secrecy before a movie or show is released. To accommodate this, the company shares design files through encrypted servers and protected internal systems.
“We’ve invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring all that technology here under the umbrella of our NDAs and our IP protection,” McBride said.
Bauer-Kahan noted at a Senate hearing that she is working to address concerns raised by 3-D printing users and industries that rely on the technology.
Paul Powers, chief executive of Physna, a company whose technology could be used to block gun parts on 3-D printers, said the strongest criticisms of AB 2047 “misunderstand how the software works.”
“Something that vaguely looks like a gun part is not considered to be a match,” he said.
Powers also responded to surveillance concerns by clarifying that his company’s software only blocks the printer from making prohibited parts — it doesn’t flag them to authorities or log users’ intellectual property.
“There’s no communication with anyone; it doesn’t go anywhere,” he said.
But Marleen Vogelaar, chief executive of Thangs3D, a platform for independent creators to share and sell 3-D printable designs, said that answer does not resolve her broader concerns about how AB 2047 would work in practice.
“These databases will always lag behind innovation and can be easily circumvented and generate false positives that block legal designs and wrongly flag everyday makers,” she said at a Senate hearing this month. “The bill also creates serious privacy and security risks by giving third parties access to analyze designer’s files. That threatens intellectual property and adds digital surveillance in a state that values data privacy.”
If the bill passes, the state’s Department of Justice would publish a roster of compliant printers. Printers not on the list would be banned from sale or transfer in California beginning in December 2029.
Aubrey Rodriguez, a legislative advocate with American Civil Liberties Union California Action, an advocacy organization formed by the ACLU’s three affiliates in the state, said the bill would ask ordinary users, schools and businesses to accept a new layer of control based on software they still do not trust.
Rodriguez said the proposal risks creating “a permanent back door into the privacy of our own homes, ripe for exploitation.”
“Once this new infrastructure exists, it is a simple software update away from tracking political dissent or preventing 3-D printing designs deemed inappropriate,” Rodriguez said.
MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge has blocked an attempt by the Trump administration to subpoena Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other state officials, calling it an effort to “harass and retaliate against them.”
In a ruling unsealed Monday, U.S. District Judge Patrick Schlitz found the “dominant purpose” of the subpoenas was to “coerce Minnesota officials into assisting the federal government with enforcing civil immigration law and to harass and retaliate against them for failing to do so.”
The subpoenas were served in January as part of an investigation into whether Walz and other officials obstructed or impeded law enforcement during a sweeping immigration operation in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
The subpoenas, which seek records, were sent to the offices of Walz, Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and officials in Ramsey and Hennepin counties.
The judge ruled that there appeared to be “extremely weak to nonexistent” connections between the information sought in the subpoenas and any possible criminal violation. The subpoenas seek materials “that largely if not entirely relate to constitutionally protected conduct,” the judge wrote, noting that Minnesota has the legal right not to devote its resources to enforcing federal immigration law.
The Justice Department “is not conducting a criminal investigation,” the judge wrote, “but is instead using the grand jury process for other (unlawful) purposes.”
The evidence that the subpoenas were issued for unlawful reasons is overwhelming, the judge said, arguing that the Justice Department “has struggled — without success — to identify a single plausible investigatory justification” for them.
Walz, in a statement, called the ruling “a victory for the rule of law and our democracy.”
“The U.S. Justice Department is pursuing criminal investigations into the President’s political opponents,” said Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president. “This case was just one example of that, but we are seeing daily reminders of this administration’s lawlessness — in Minnesota and around the country. We all must continue to seek justice and uphold the rule of law.”
Ellison said “it should disturb every American that Donald Trump is weaponizing the criminal justice system against people he disagrees with.”
The subpoenas are “a politically motivated retaliation against our city for lawfully standing up to ICE and fighting for our residents,” Her said in a statement, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Frey said the investigation was “never about justice, law, and order, but the absence of it.”
“Subpoenaing political opponents because they spoke on behalf of their constituents violates the core tenets of our democracy and human decency,” he said.
Frey also observed that criticizing government action is not a crime.
“One of the defining strengths of our democracy is the ability to challenge those in power without fear of retribution. Elected officials have both the right and the responsibility to speak honestly about how government decisions affect the people they serve,” he said.
Bauer and Richer write for the Associated Press. AP writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — The paint is peeling from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after the renovation ordered by President Trump, and he is now alleging, without substantiation, that someone damaged it intentionally.
“We’ve had some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool,” he posted on his social media site Friday night. “Just like three days ago, they destroyed the grass outside of the Pool, they’ve also done everything possible to hurt the inside surface that was just installed.” He offered no details to substantiate his claim.
Agencies responsible for law enforcement and upkeep on the National Mall — the U.S. Park Police, National Park Service and Department of the Interior — did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Washington Post reported that Park Police officers arrested someone Friday who they said was peeling paint from the pool, an act that would not explain the clouds of algae in green water and swaths of loose blue paint detached from the bottom.
Trump insisted something nefarious was going on. “No different than the chemicals that were used on the National Mall, they used something similar in the Reflecting Pool to try to destroy and demean our beautiful work,” he posted.
That was a reference to the discovery of large numbers etched in discolored grass on the National Mall the week before: “86 47,” apparently advocating to “86” — get rid of, in restaurant lingo — the 47th president.
Authorities claimed the numbers may be a threat against Trump, and they are investigating. Trump’s Department of Justice has tried — unsuccessfully so far — to prosecute Trump foe and former FBI Director James B. Comey for posting a photo of seashells arranged in the numerals “86 47.”
Trump’s claims of vandalism came after days of negative attention to the state of the Reflecting Pool, which has raised concerns about the no-bid contract of more than $14 million to refurbish. The president has said the pool rehab was needed as the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations ramp up.
The pool was swiftly beset by an algae bloom that returned its waters to the greenish color that Trump had tried to replace by having the bottom painted “American flag blue.”
Federal workers treated the pool with hydrogen peroxide to kill the algae. Now, chunks of the blue paint are gone, exposing its rocky bottom.
The last time Angelenos sacked an incumbent city attorney in the primaries, almost 30% of them were unemployed.
That was May 2, 1933, the nadir of the Great Depression, when sprawling encampments blanketed downtown, King Kong ruled movie theaters and violent crime reached a fever pitch not seen again for almost half a century.
Incumbent City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto’s near-certain defeat on Tuesday may have little in common with Erwin P. Werner’s primary loss 93 years ago, but themes of Depression-era Los Angeles echo through the contest.
Marissa Roy, a deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice who leads the race with ballots still being counted, wooed voters with shoe-leather and social media savvy, promising to use the office to fight for wage workers and tenants. But it was the city’s powerful unions and its increasingly democratic socialist bloc that propelled her to the top spot, mirroring the coalition that drove California’s sharp left turn in the early 1930s.
Meanwhile, county prosecutor John McKinney tapped into voter frustration with homeless encampments, a blighted downtown and general distrust of City Hall to pull off a last-minute heist of the second runoff spot. McKinney only started campaigning in earnest five weeks ago, but managed to win votes with a tough-on-crime campaign — even as some categories of city crime have dipped to historic lows.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, left, shares a laugh with L.A. City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, right, at Avance Democratic Club’s politics and tacos event on May 16.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
As of Thursday morning, Roy had nearly double the number of votes of Feldstein Soto. McKinney led the incumbent by 13 percentage points for the second runoff slot. The race has not yet been called, but Feldstein Soto issued a statement effectively conceding the race Wednesday morning. She acknowledged that “the voters had spoken” and referenced “her successor’s administration.”
Her campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The ouster of Feldstein Soto would be nearly unprecedented. Werner’s 1933 loss is the only similar instance since the city adopted its current primary ballot process in 1917, according to the City Clerk’s office. No other incumbent city council member or mayor has ever failed to advance out of the primary when facing two or more opponents.
“This is not something that has happened in the lifetimes of most people who follow city government,” said Mike Bonin, former City Council member and executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State L.A.
McKinney’s sudden emergence in the race in May saw him hijack the incumbent’s support from law enforcement. His campaign received $3 million worth of independent expenditures. An official with a group supporting McKinney — who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media — said an internal poll showed Feldstein Soto falling nearly 10 points outside the runoff a week before election day.
Since Roy had already captured the support of the county Democratic Party and energized left-leaning voters, that put Feldstein Soto in the center, analysts said, which left her vulnerable in a race that most people casting ballots hadn’t closely followed.
“To the extent that people had any information, they knew that one of them basically wanted to be tougher and somebody on the other side wanted to be kinder, that left her with very little room to maneuver,” said Roy Behr, a longtime consultant to veteran politicians in the city.
Roy “micro-targeted” likely progressive voters in social media spots, experts said, presenting as an affable presence in her ever-present purple blazer while sharing her vision of serving as the “people’s lawyer.”
Marissa Roy, a deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice, appears poised to finish first in the June 2 primary race for L.A. city attorney.
(Gary Coronado / For The Times)
Boosted by a massive influx of cash from rental giant Airbnb, some of McKinney’s ads played up his hard-luck upbringing in one of New Jersey’s most violent cities. His campaign also sent out texts that painted his opponents as “George Gascón”-style Democrats, invoking the former progressive district attorney as a bogeyman for voters anxious about crime.
AI-generated videos depicted McKinney as a stoic, suit-clad crime fighter walking through a dystopian version of L.A.’s Metro system.
“The debate isn’t necessarily two candidates on one stage appealing to one person, it’s for attention and information in the same sphere,” said Spencer Slovic of Mycorrhiza Digital, who ran Roy’s digital advertising. “That battle of information will play out almost in different realms.”
Without a compelling story for her powerful but poorly understood role, Feldstein Soto often struggled to explain her achievements in office.
In a recent interview with The Times, she said she delivered on “public safety, public integrity and public services.” She went on to discuss granular improvements she made to the office, such as limiting access to law enforcement databases by former employees, modernizing internal systems and improving the rapport between the city attorney’s office and LAPD. By her own admission, she doesn’t often publicly celebrate her accomplishments.
“I didn’t hold some big press conference and hop up on a white horse and declare myself Joan of Arc and the savior of all things Los Angeles,” she said. “Which I could have done.”
Tumult during Feldstein Soto’s lone term in office was easier for voters to identify. The cost of litigation exploded. A high-ranking city lawyer accused her of abusing her power, prosecuting political enemies, mistreating employees and engaging in “inappropriate alcohol consumption.” Feldstein Soto claimed she improved her office’s rapport with the LAPD, but the police union’s decision to rescind its endorsement of her and instead back McKinney cost her a key voting bloc.
Feldstein Soto’s messaging was at times muddled and lacked the flair of her challengers, political observers said. Campaign finance records show she paid for 80 email blasts, mailers and other messages that sought to influence voters.
John McKinney, a Los Angeles County prosecutor, appears set to advance to a run-off against Marissa Roy in the race for L.A. city attorney.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
In one video, she stood in front of a static background and talked for three minutes straight about her record while describing her opponents as representing the “extreme left” and “extreme right.” She attacked both for receiving large sums of money from “special interests,” especially McKinney for accepting Airbnb’s largesse. Feldstein Soto sued the rental giant for price gouging in the wake of the 2025 wildfires.
Roy’s campaign sent out 180 communications, records show, the bulk of them ads for Instagram and Facebook, where her team said they saw instantly which stories resonated with likely voters and which were duds.
Slovic said a “clip of Hydee talking about how she wasn’t going to prosecute the Trump administration” seemed to touch a nerve with voters.
“That was by far our best performing ad,” he said, adding, “What Democrats really want in primaries is someone who will fight and have some sort of backbone.”
McKinney had just 23 communications, campaign records show, plus 19 more made by independent groups. He often leaned into the same gritty visuals that defined mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt’s viral AI spots.
In a race for a position most voters don’t understand, McKinney’s and Roy’s ability to play a consistent character may have proved critical, political analysts said.
“The vast majority of voters started off with no strong feelings about the race,” Behr said. “Nobody had any votes locked down other than their friends and neighbors.”
NEWARK, N.J. — The mayor of Newark imposed a curfew early Sunday around an immigration detention center in New Jersey after a series of intense clashes between protesters and police.
The curfew around Delaney Hall will be in place between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. until further notice, Mayor Ras Baraka said in a statement.
The move came after another night of standoffs between law enforcement and demonstrators at the facility, as protesters could be seen in photographs and videos fighting over barricades as police used riot shields to push them back. A video posted on social media showed police on horseback marching into crowds, attempting to break up groups of demonstrators.
The high-profile demonstrations at Delaney Hall began this month after advocates said detainees launched a hunger strike over poor living conditions at the 1,000-bed facility, the latest focus of opposition over the federal government’s immigration crackdown.
The private company GEO Group operates the lockup under the supervision of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The shuttered facility reopened for immigration detainees in February 2025.
New Jersey state police on Friday replaced federal immigration enforcement agents who had been facing off against protesters at the facility for days.
In a statement Sunday morning, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said masked people attacked a barrier in a designated protest area set up by state police and were “throwing projectiles, utilizing the barriers as weapons, and lighting tires on fire in the street.”
“These actions put both peaceful protesters and law enforcement in danger,” Sherrill said, urging calm to focus on advocating for “better conditions for the detainees, for their families, and ultimately, for the closure of Delaney Hall.”
Sherrill also said that the federal government has reopened family visits at Delaney Hall starting Sunday.
Asked about visitations resuming, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement, “To be clear: Visitation was only suspended because of violent riots. Now that we have a secure perimeter, visitation can resume.”
President Trump’s administration is suing four states over their refusal to issue undercover license plates to federal agents, the latest front in the wider struggle between the White House and Democratic-led states over the Republican president’s immigration crackdown.
The Department of Justice alleges in separate lawsuits announced Thursday that Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington state are imposing unconstitutional restrictions that it says impede law enforcement and threaten agents’ safety.
“By denying undercover license plates to DHS components, including ICE, while issuing them to their own state agencies, these governors are pursuing discriminatory and obstructionist policies against federal law enforcement,” said acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche in a statement.
“These actions undermine federal immigration enforcement, allow dangerous criminals to escape justice, and terrorize American communities,” Blanche added.
The Justice Department filed the suits on Wednesday in U.S. district courts in the respective states. The four state governments are accused of trying “to obstruct the Federal Government’s immigration enforcement efforts, even though control over immigration and the nation’s borders is an exclusive federal power.”
Additionally, the Justice Department argues in the suits that the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause bars state governments from regulating federal law enforcement.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who oversees her state’s plate program and is also a Democratic candidate for governor, said she’s confident her decisions will hold up in court.
“What ICE did in Maine and continues to do was terrorize our friends and neighbors,” Bellows said in an interview Thursday. “There are no secret police in a democracy and we will always stand up for our Mainers safety and freedom.”
A spokesperson for Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Joy Campbell said the state’s lawyers are “reviewing the complaint and will defend the RMV policy to the greatest extent possible.”
Officials in Washington and Oregon did not respond to a request for comment on the federal action.
Feds say agents are endangered when easily identified
The administration asserts that federal agents “frequently investigate and apprehend violent criminals, including cartel members, gang members, sex offenders, human traffickers, and other violent offenders” and says making those authorities easily identifiable subjects them to increased harassment and potential physical harm.
The lawsuit comes after a back-and-forth between the DOJ and some state officials. The administration previously sent state officials letters demanding they justify their policies.
Maine Atty. Gen. Aaron Frey answered the Justice Department last week, defending his state’s policy and disputing the DOJ’s contention that it has hampered federal enforcement actions.
“Rather, the program reflects a legitimate and constitutional policy choice by the SOS not to allow its resources to be commandeered by the federal government for use in civil immigration enforcement activities that have, in Maine and elsewhere, resulted in multiple incidents of abusive and unconstitutional conduct by DHS officials,” Frey wrote.
Bellows, in her role as secretary of state, announced a pause on confidential license plates in January, after federal authorities ramped up their immigration enforcement activities in the state. Bellows said at the time that the state wanted to be “assured that Maine plates will not be used for lawless purposes.”
The federal suit against Maine argues that the state “has issued confidential license plates to law enforcement agencies for many years” and that “such plates are explicitly authorized under Maine law.” The state’s review this year, the suit argues, resulted in unlawful state regulation of the federal government by requiring federal applicants for state license plates to attest that federal vehicles that obtained confidential plates would not be used for civil immigration enforcement. The suit also states that Maine did not impose commensurate requirements on state or local agencies applying for the plates, making the program discriminatory against the federal government.
Bellows has previously defended her decision.
“When ICE asked for confidential license plates, I said no” because “covert civil immigration enforcement is not something Maine will facilitate,” she said last week.
Arguments are similar to debate over agents’ masks
The Trump administration’s arguments on the license plates are similar to its defense of federal agents wearing masks on their deployments to American cities. That became a flashpoint in an extended government shutdown over Department of Homeland Security funding, as Democrats on Capitol Hill demanded key changes to how Trump’s mass deportation plans were carried out after masked federal agents killed two U.S. citizen protesters in Minnesota.
The White House and DHS have maintained the agency’s mask policy, and the administration already has won a federal court order blocking a California law that barred law enforcement officials from covering their faces in the state.
Additionally, the administration has been at odds with so-called sanctuary cities where local law enforcement does not assist federal authorities with immigration enforcement. And Blanche has instructed the Justice Department’s Civil Division to identify all state and local laws, policies, and practices that could impede what the administration describes as “lawful federal operations.”
Barrow and Whittle write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta. Whittle reported from Scarborough, Maine.
WASHINGTON — Last June 16, armed immigration agents broke the locks to forcibly enter an Oxnard auto body shop. Juan Carlos Ramirez, a U.S. citizen, filmed as they arrested his father.
Then the agents pepper-sprayed Ramirez, slammed him onto the hoods of two vehicles, punched his face and kneed him in the side, according to a legal claim he later filed against the federal government.
Local attorney Vanessa Valdez denounced Ramirez’s arrest at an Oxnard City Council meeting the next day. The following month, Valdez found herself in a similar situation when agents raided the cannabis company Glass House Farms.
Despite identifying herself as a legal observer, she said, agents — or possibly National Guard — deployed tear gas and shot her six times with rubber bullets. She ran and then, unable to see, crawled on all fours to escape.
Vanessa Valdez, a Ventura-based attorney, has filed a claim against the federal government, alleging she was hit with tear gas and six rubber bullets during the Glass House Farms raid last July.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“They were just shooting aimlessly, it seemed like,” she said. “I thought maybe they had fractured a rib because that’s how painful it was. I couldn’t sleep face down for three weeks.”
Ramirez and Valdez are among the dozens of U.S. citizens and immigrants who are seeking financial compensation for damages they say they suffered during President Trump’s immigration dragnet. For Valdez, that includes the cost of hospital visits, lost wages as she recovered, anxiety medication and seeing a therapist.
After reviewing public accounts and legal documents and interviews with more than a dozen lawyers and immigrants, The Times found that claimants from across the country are seeking at least $260 million.
In a statement, Homeland Security spokesperson Lauren Bis wrote that ICE officers are held to the highest professional standard and receive regular training. Bis said that when agents are faced with danger, they use their training to protect themselves and the public.
“The pattern is NOT of law enforcement using force. It’s a pattern of violent agitators attacking our law enforcement,” she wrote.
Asked about Valdez, Bis said law enforcement deployed chemical irritants including pepper balls, but not rubber bullets, after agitators attempted to breach the perimeter at Glass House Farms. She said Ramirez refused officer’s commands and physically attacked them, so they pepper-sprayed him in self-defense.
Lawyers who are experts in tort claims said the bureaucratic process is lengthy and complex, and any damage award would likely be lower than what a claimant is seeking.
Still, seeking redress through the Federal Tort Claims Act is one of the few legal remedies available for those seeking financial compensation for deaths, physical injuries, emotional trauma, unlawful detention or property damage caused by federal employees.
The number of claims is expected to rise.
Federal agents, some wearing street clothes and some wearing uniforms and protective gear, form a defensive line against hundreds of protesters outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles on Jan. 30.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
In recent months, advocacy organizations have prepared practice advisories for attorneys interested in filing tort claims, and law groups across the country have begun holding training sessions on the process.
“There is no question in my mind that a lot of people — hundreds, thousands — have been harmed significantly and will be legally entitled to large damages payouts, which are going to come from the federal government,” said Jonathan Feinberg, a Philadelphia-based attorney.
Feinberg, who specializes in cases involving excessive use of force by police and abuses of detained immigrants, is president of the board of directors for the National Police Accountability Project, which focuses on law enforcement misconduct.
“We’re going to be talking about Minneapolis in 2030,” he added.
Before they can sue in federal court, individuals must first request a review by the agency that they say is responsible, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection. The agency has six months to respond and deny the claim or offer a settlement.
If the agency doesn’t respond or denies a claim, the claimant can then file suit.
Unlike civil rights lawsuits, in which juries decide the verdict, in tort cases, judges make that call. Only the agencies are named as defendants, not individuals.
The Times reviewed the claims of nearly 80 people filed since the start of 2025. The vast majority remain in the review stage. Lawyers anticipate most will not be settled, unleashing a flood of lawsuits starting this summer.
Federal law since 1871 has established that people can sue state and local officials for violating their constitutional rights. But the law left out federal actors.
One hundred years later, the Supreme Court allowed for damages lawsuits against federal officials who violate a person’s civil rights, though decisions in recent years have substantially narrowed that ability.
Democrats in California are pursuing legislation that would make it easier for residents to seek financial damages for constitutional violations committed by federal agents. Similar laws were already enacted in Maryland, Illinois and Connecticut, though the Trump administration has sued to block the latter two.
But there is a different route — tort claims.
Tort cases can be difficult to win, in part because the government can claim a “discretionary function exception,” which shields the agency from liability when the situation involves a policy-driven judgment call.
“So that’s what a lot of plaintiff’s lawyers are really anxious about, that the Trump administration is going to say, ‘Well, we’ve got our own immigration policies. Of course a lot of people disagree with them, but the statute is designed to give us the right to make those policy judgments,’” said Benjamin Zipursky, a Fordham University law professor who studies torts.
“Now, if I were the plaintiff’s lawyer, I would say, ‘Yeah, but shooting somebody in cold blood because you’re just mad about their political views, and they’re not really threatening your life at all — that’s not a policy judgment,’” he said.
The law office of John Burris, an Oakland-based attorney who represented Rodney King after he was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers in 1991, has taken on damages clients in Minnesota. He said he anticipates filing around 80 tort claims stemming from the immigration enforcement actions there.
A memorial for Renee Good at the location where she was fatally shot in Minneapolis.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Burris said the experience has given him flashbacks to the period before King’s beating and the subsequent protests over police brutality, when officers felt they could act with impunity.
“There’s 1779798656 a more fundamental understanding that bad stuff does happen,” he said. “Everyday people are not as willing as they once were to just accept a police officer’s perspective.”
Public disapproval over immigration enforcement rose after federal immigration agents in Minneapolis shot and killed two 37-year-old U.S. citizens, Renee Good, a mother of three, and Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, in separate incidents.
Other deaths took place before the Minnesota operation: 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez, who was killed by an ICE agent in Texas who fired repeatedly through the open window of his car; Keith Porter, 43, who was killed in Los Angeles by an off-duty ICE agent after shooting his gun into the air on New Year’s Eve; and Jaime Alanis Garcia, 57, who fell 30 feet from atop a greenhouse while fleeing agents at the Glass House Farms site in Camarillo.
Lawyers for the families of Good, Martinez and Garcia confirmed they are pursuing tort claims. Lawyers for the other families did not respond to requests for comment.
Additional highly publicized cases have also resulted in tort claims: Marimar Martinez, who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago; Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student and Palestinian rights activist who spent 104 days detained after the administration labeled him a national security threat; Aliya Rahman, a disabled woman on her way to a doctor’s appointment in Minneapolis who blacked out at a detention facility after ICE agents detained her.
New claims appear to be filed weekly. Seventeen men, women and children who were detained in a military-style raid at a Chicago apartment complex filed claims this month seeking about $5 million each.
In many of the cases, Bis said, the claimants impeded or assaulted agents. Pretti’s death remains under investigation, she said.
Willy Wender Aceituno stands in the parking lot where he was arrested last November by ICE agents in Charlotte, N.C.
(Jesse Barber / For The Times)
Willy Wender Aceituno was already a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU of North Carolina challenging the policy allowing warrantless immigration arrests after he was stopped twice in a span of minutes by immigration agents last November. In March, he also submitted a tort claim.
Aceituno is a Honduran-born U.S. citizen who voted for Trump. On the day he was arrested, a group of masked agents checked his identification and left. Aceituno then filmed as a second group surrounded his red truck.
“If you break it, you will pay for it,” he tells them in Spanish seconds before one agent smashes the window with a baton. “Why did you do that, sir?”
Aceituno suffered cuts when agents threw him to the ground, which was covered in shattered glass. They placed him in an SUV with other detainees and drove him around Charlotte, N.C., before releasing him, still bleeding, more than 2 miles from his vehicle.
The moment brought back Aceituno’s childhood memory of watching his father be arrested by the Honduran military and disappeared.
“I remember they broke down the door, entered, put him in handcuffs and threw him to the ground,” he said. “I thought, ‘It’s happening again.’ To see the other Hispanics in the car made it feel like this is racial persecution. This is about skin, not criminality.”
Bis, the Homeland Security spokesperson, said Aceituno acted erratically, escalated the situation and refused to comply with officers’ commands.
Lawyers said many people, especially immigrants, who have viable claims have chosen not to pursue them out of fear of being targeted for deportation. Some were deported before they could sue.
“Even now, our clients wake up some days thinking, ‘What am I doing suing the federal government?’” said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of the Massachusetts-based Lawyers for Civil Rights. “You have to have a lot of courage to be able to stand up against an administration that has put a bull’s-eye on you and that has targeted you based on your identity.”
Others have turned to mutual aid or online fundraisers to pay for medical bills or to repair property damage. On the website GoFundMe, donation campaigns describe shattered car windows, broken limbs, head trauma and mounting bills.
Some damage can’t be fully recompensated, Espinoza-Madrigal added.
Members of the Haitian community hold signs in support for the extension of Temporary Protected Status during a rally last month in Miami.
(Carl Juste / Miami Herald / Getty Images)
One of the organization’s clients is Jose Pineda, a Salvadoran man with Temporary Protected Status. A year ago, Pineda was stopped by ICE officers on his way to work in East Boston as a landscaper. They wouldn’t accept his Social Security and work authorization cards as proof enough that he was not deportable, and detained him without explanation, according to his tort claim.
So Pineda spent nearly two days in a holding cell at the ICE Boston Field Office with around 50 other people. He couldn’t sit or sleep and received minimal water and food.
Bis said agents “briefly questioned” Pineda because he matched the description of the subject of an operation, and that he was released after being identified.
When he was released, the claim alleges, his documents were returned but $600 in cash that he was saving to pay rent was not. The incident left him with frequent headaches, anxiety and memory loss, and exacerbated his gastritis. His absence from work resulted in a demotion from lead foreman to an assistant role.
“Whenever I drive, if someone stays behind me for three, four or five minutes, I start to imagine that it’s them again,” he said in an interview.
Pineda’s arrest also caused recurring nightmares that leave him shouting and thrashing around in bed. Out of fear that he could inadvertently harm his wife, they now sleep in separate beds.
