New ACLU Report Documents Widespread and Unchecked Civil Rights Abuses by Immigration Agents in California and Nationwide During President Trump’s Second Term

SAN DIEGO, CA — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today released a new report, Agents of Chaos and Cruelty, documenting widespread civil rights violations carried out by immigration agents in California and across the country during the first year of President Trump’s second term. The report examines immigration enforcement incidents in California and seven others – [Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, and New Mexico] — representing a cross-section of the country and reflecting varying degrees of federal law enforcement presence and personnel surges. The report found that over 400 of the more than 1,200 immigration enforcement incidents examined involved misconduct by immigration agents and comes just days after ICE shot and killed two men in Texas and Maine, underscoring the agency’s out-of-control enforcement practices nationwide.

It is the first in-depth civil rights review of immigration enforcement actions throughout 2025 in these eight states. The reviewed incidents pull from prior ACLU litigation, research and advocacy, as well as congressional investigations, human rights documentation, and investigative reporting that found similar patterns during the same period. It is also the first in a series of reports to be published by the ACLU ahead of the 2026 midterm election in an effort to urge lawmakers to support an affirmative vision for immigration reform.

The report documents 528 times law enforcement engaged in misconduct in California, which includes officers pushing, shoving, tackling and pinning people, as well as officers utilizing weapons such as tasers, batons, flashbang grenades, chemical irritants and rubber bullets. The report also documents 4 instances of lethal force in California.

“We have watched violent federal agents kill our neighbors—including U.S. citizens and longtime residents—with no accountability for the officers, no changes in how these agencies operate,” said Nalini Gupta, policy director of ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties (ACLU-SDIC). “Now two more fathers are dead, killed by federal immigration agents. These killings are horrifying, and they are also the foreseeable result of handing billions of no-strings-attached taxpayer dollars to out-of-control agencies without any reforms or guardrails. This has to stop.”

Though the incidents examined represent a small fraction of total reported enforcement activity in 2025, the pattern across eight states is unmistakable: what happened in Minneapolis, where federal agents killed U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good, was not confined to that location, surge, or population. They were part of a pattern of civil rights violations of excessive force, racial profiling, intimidation, and abuse by both federal officials and state and local law enforcement.

“Far beyond Minneapolis, the Trump administration has deployed a national deportation policing force that has committed civil rights violations at a scale and severity without parallel in modern American history – turning schools, bus stops and grocery stores into sites of violence and abuse,” said Naureen Shah, ACLU director of policy and government affairs and report author. “These are not isolated events. Stephen Miller took these tactics straight from the authoritarian playbook and is now overseeing a $240 billion immigration enforcement machine that threatens all our rights.”

Among the report’s key findings nationwide:

• Agents used force and the threat of force as default tactics. The report documented 418 times agents pushed, shoved, tackled or pinned people; 361 times agents deployed chemical irritants, including 131 times they were directly aimed at individuals and 81 instances when agents used tactics that can limit breathing and become deadly, such as chokeholds.

• Instead of protecting children, the administration turned their enforcement tools against them. The report identified 214 children who were detained, targeted for enforcement or experienced law enforcement misconduct, including 32 U.S. citizen children.

• Racial profiling by federal, state and local agents was rampant. The report documented 437 incidents involving likely racial profiling by agents.

• U.S. citizens were often impacted in immigration enforcement. The report identified 155 U.S. citizens detained, targeted or who experienced law enforcement misconduct.

• Agents routinely conducted enforcement at or near sensitive locations, including 49 documented incidents at or near schools – prompting 40 school lockdowns.

• Protesters, journalists, elected officials, clergy, and community observers were also regularly targeted by immigration agents. The report found that 783 total people in those groups were detained, targeted, or subjected to misconduct.

The report also documents a systemic breakdown in accountability. Agents masked their faces, drove unmarked vehicles, and wore clothing that did not quickly indicate an agency affiliation. With multiple agencies outside ICE redirected to conduct enforcement, these tactics sometimes made it difficult for people to know whether they were being criminally abducted and made it impossible for victims and bystanders to know who to hold responsible for abuse.

Critically, the report highlights how oversight measures have failed to hold immigration agents accountable. Congress had an opportunity to reform ICE during recent funding negotiations but instead passed a blank check without the commonsense reforms that advocates and communities made clear were needed.

The Agents of Chaos and Cruelty report urges policymakers to call for transformative change to our immigration system, in recognition that it is broken and dangerous to human rights. Recommendations include:

• Pass SB 1105, the Protect California Rights Act, which would limit California law enforcement entanglement in federal operations that threaten due process, civil rights and community trust.

• Pass a path to citizenship for millions of people who are immigrants, such as through the American Dream and Promise Act.

• Replace our broken system with a new immigration management agency oriented toward service, keeping families together and meeting the needs of the American workforce.

• Dismantle the national deportation policing force, including by ending ICE’s 287(g) program that draws state and local police into deportations.

• Ensure that people who are victimized can sue and hold federal law enforcement officers and agencies accountable for abuse, including by enacting the Bivens Act and Constitutional Accountability Act.

• Enact limits and robust oversight measures on collaboration and deputization between state and federal law enforcement.

Throughout the ACLU’s affirmative vision report series, policy and legal experts will explore how the Trump administration’s immigration agenda has harmed communities nationwide, gutted asylum and other legal pathways, undermined our democracy, and wreaked havoc on key industries and weakened the American workforce. The series will also outline steps that members of Congress, as well as state and local policymakers, can take to reform the U.S. immigration system and inoculate against future attacks on immigrant communities.

You can read the full report and findings here.