FRESNO, Calif. — A federal district court has found that the U.S. Border Patrol violated a prior court order during a July 2025 immigration operation in Sacramento, raising serious concerns about agents’ conduct, documentation practices and adherence to constitutional limits, according to an ACLU press release issued Thursday.
After finding that immigration agents had “conducted stops without reasonable suspicion and failed to properly document their actions,” the federal district court subsequently granted a motion enforcing a preliminary injunction in United Farm Workers v. Noem. According to the ACLU, this effectively reinforced “constitutional limits on Border Patrol operations in California’s Eastern District.”
The ACLU reported that U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston held that the conduct of Border Patrol agents during the operation “failed to comply with the court’s April 2025 preliminary injunction prohibiting stops without individualized reasonable suspicion.”
As confirmed by government attorneys in a February hearing on the motion, Border Patrol agents lacked “reasonable suspicion that any particular person targeted in the raid was unlawfully in the country.” According to the ACLU, the agents instead “swarmed a Home Depot and targeted anyone who ran from them.”
The court “emphasized that agents may not rely on generalized assumptions or flight alone to justify detentions,” and additionally found that Border Patrol’s documentation of the raids was not only deficient but inaccurate in some cases, as reported by the ACLU.
According to the ACLU, Bree Bernwanger, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, said, “Agents relied on boilerplate narratives and, in multiple instances, other officers modified or doctored reports describing stops and arrests.”
Bernwanger added, “The court concluded that these practices violated the requirement to provide specific individualized facts justifying each stop.”
The ACLU reported that the court consequently ordered Border Patrol to take actions that would ensure compliance with its prior order. This includes requiring each agent to “personally document the facts supporting any stop and prohibiting agents from relying on generic or copied language without individualized detail.”
United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero said, “This ruling confirms what we have said since Border Patrol first attacked farm workers in and around Bakersfield: Border Patrol cannot round people up just because they are brown, speak Spanish, and work hard.”
As the ACLU reported, Romero added, “The court made clear that Border Patrol’s raid on day laborers in Sacramento, like their raid on farm workers near Bakersfield, was unconstitutional. Working people are safer when we stand up together to defend one another.”
According to the ACLU, the decision stems from an operation on July 17, 2025. At a Home Depot in Sacramento, Border Patrol agents detained individuals “based on generalized assumptions concerning their immigration status,” lacking specific information.
The ACLU reported that this raid was one of a series of nationwide operations referred to as Operation At Large, which reportedly utilized similar tactics across the country. The court found that “prior surveillance of different people at the location and assumptions based on location” was an insufficient lawful basis for stops.
“This decision is an important rebuke of Border Patrol’s unlawful practices,” said Jason George, part of counsel with Keker, Van Nest & Peters.
According to the ACLU, George added, “The agency tried to justify sweeping, suspicionless stops and then paper over the problems by doctoring their arrest reports. We are pleased that the court saw through their tactics and strengthened requirements to ensure accountability going forward.”
The ACLU reported that the United Farm Workers and five Kern County residents sued the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Border Patrol in February 2025. According to the ACLU, the plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU Foundations of Northern California, Southern California, and San Diego & Imperial Counties, and by Keker Van Nest & Peters LLP.
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