United Farm Workers v. Kristi Noem

On February 26, 2025, the ACLU Foundations of Northern California, Southern California, and San Diego & Imperial Counties, and Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Border Patrol to prohibit the government from stopping, arresting, and summarily expelling community members from the country using practices that violate the U.S. Constitution and federal law.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of the United Farm Workers and five Kern County residents. Border Patrol violated the plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures, their Fifth Amendment right to due process, and other federal laws. 

In January 2025, Border Patrol agents based at the U.S.-Mexico border ventured more than 300 miles inland to Bakersfield to launch “Operation Return to Sender,” a weeklong operation in predominantly Latino areas of Kern County and the surrounding area.

The operation appears to have been designed to stop, detain, and arrest people of color who agents assumed were farmworkers or day laborers, regardless of their actual immigration status or individual circumstances, transport them back to the El Centro Border Patrol Station, and coerce them into “voluntary departure,” a form of summary expulsion which can result in a bar on reentry to the U.S. for up to 10 years.

This was a fishing expedition, not a targeted operation. By casting a wide net, Border Patrol unlawfully detained dozens of people who agents had no reason to suspect were in the country without proper documentation.

Plaintiffs seek to represent three classes of individuals who have been or will be subjected to the three unlawful practices the lawsuit challenges: 1) stops regardless of reasonable suspicion of unlawful presence; 2) arrests without regard to probable cause of flight risk; and 3) voluntary departure without a knowing and voluntary waiver of rights.

Learn more: 

Border Patrol sued for tactics used in Kern County immigration raid

ACLU Sues Border Patrol over California immigration raid that set off panic among farmworkers