Filed
4:10 p.m. EST
02.10.2026
It’s nearly impossible to sue federal officials for civil rights violations, but a new ACLU filing could become a test case for how to do it.
Federal agents stand at La Catedral Arena in Wilder, Idaho, in October 2025. Multiple state and local law enforcement agencies showed up with ICE and the FBI as part of an immigration raid. A new lawsuit says the raid violated the civil rights of people who were detained.
The details of the immigration raid were jarring: On Oct. 19, 2025, more than 200 local, state and federal law enforcement officers descended on a horse racing track in Wilder, Idaho, where hundreds of Latino families had gathered for a Sunday outing. The raid included helicopters, armored trucks, guns, flashbang grenades, and rubber bullets. Agents detained hundreds of people, some of whom were U.S. citizens and legal residents, including children. Officers arrested 105 people.
But the search warrants for the raid named just five people — specifically targets of an FBI investigation into an alleged illegal gambling ring at the racetrack. The warrants don’t mention immigration enforcement.
A new lawsuit filed by the ACLU on Tuesday alleges those warrants were used illegally to target and detain Latino families — many of whom were lawful residents — and violate their civil rights. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Idaho on behalf of several Latino families who were detained, could become a test case for whether people harmed by federal immigration officers can successfully sue them in federal court.
The ACLU’s argument is this: Federal agents abused a criminal search warrant to “go fishing” for immigration arrests at an event where they knew they would encounter a large number of Latino families. In doing so, and by using local law enforcement officers to help carry out these arrests, they violated a federal law designed to protect people against civil rights abuses by state and local officers, the suit alleges.
That historic civil rights law specifically doesn’t apply to federal agents, making it nearly impossible for people to successfully sue them. In the suit over the Wilder raid, the ACLU alleges the federal agents conspired with the state and local officers — and they should be held accountable for violating the civil rights of the families detained at the racetrack who were not part of a gambling ring investigation.
“Law enforcement approached this crowd like they were less than human,” said Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, one of the ACLU lawyers for the plaintiffs. ICE and Border Patrol can’t use local law enforcement as tools to violate constitutional rights when making immigration arrests, she said.
“From Wilder, to Minneapolis, to Chicago, the Trump administration is trampling our rights using racially biased tactics that make us all less safe,” she said. “The administration can suggest that this abuse is immune from legal consequences, but it is not, and we intend to prove that in court.”
A DHS spokesperson previously told Idaho news outlets that the raid “dismantled an illegal horse-racing, animal fighting and a gambling enterprise operation” and arrested “105 illegal aliens.”
The FBI field office overseeing the raid issued a press release afterward, quoting Special Agent in Charge Robert Bohls saying: “Illegal gambling isn’t a victimless crime … These operations can create an increase in violent crime, drug activity, and violence, putting communities at risk.” The bureau named the five people arrested and charged in connection with the illegal gambling allegations, but doesn’t mention immigration enforcement.
The horse races at La Catedral,near the Idaho-Oregon border, had a county permit, according to federal court records. The races commonly attract between 250 and 500 attendees, mostly Latino. The ACLU’s lawsuit describes the event as a gathering of families celebrating Latino culture, food and ranching tradition, with its own security staff on site.
When agents from ICE and the FBI showed up with dozens of officers from the Idaho State Police, Canyon County Sheriff’s Office, and a local task force involving police from various cities, they “pointed guns and screamed orders at frightened families,” using racist epithets, according to the lawsuit. The agents and officers sorted the groups “partly based on perceived immigration status, while wrongly presuming light-skinned individuals to be citizens and dark-skinned individuals to be undocumented.” The New York Times recently reported that 75 people from the raid have been deported.
The FBI’s post-raid press release states that allegations “suggesting young children were zip-tied or hit with rubber bullets” during the Wilder raid are “completely false.” Some of the plaintiffs in the ACLU’s lawsuit are teenagers who say they were zip-tied and detained by police.
Juana Rodriguez and her 3-year-old son — both U.S. citizens — were detained in the crowd for several hours. Her hands were bound with zip ties, and officers wouldn’t allow her to give her toddler food or water for hours, she said in a statement.
“What happened turned our outing into a nightmare. My toddler was forced to witness an incredible amount of violence against people he loves and hear racial slurs about Latinos, experiences that no child should ever be exposed to.”
