Federal Agents in L.A. Conduct a Big Immigration Raid at a Home Depot

Federal agents in Los Angeles on Wednesday conducted the most high-profile immigration sweep in the area since a court order barred the authorities from stopping people for immigration checks without “reasonable suspicion.”

Whether the raid violated the court order is a question the judge in the case could be asked to consider in the coming days.

The Department of Homeland Security said that the operation, named Trojan Horse, was a “targeted raid” that led to arrests of 16 undocumented immigrants from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Videos circulating on social media showed agents in tactical vests jumping out of a Penske rental truck in a Home Depot parking lot and then running onto the streets of the Westlake neighborhood, which is home to many Latino immigrants.

A wave of immigration raids in and around Los Angeles in June prompted days of demonstrations and led to a lawsuit asserting that federal agents were violating the Constitution in stopping people based on factors such as race, speaking Spanish and where they worked.

After a federal judge issued a temporary order barring such stops, large-scale sweeps in the Los Angeles area appeared to have fallen off, and last Friday, a three-judge appellate panel kept the order in place while the lawsuit moves forward in the lower court.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said on Wednesday that it was reviewing information about the raid to assess whether agents may have violated the court order.

John Sandweg, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Obama administration, said the operation on Wednesday might have relied on information from informants or other investigative work that could meet the reasonable suspicion requirement.

But that type of raid — storming a parking lot that sends people fleeing in many directions — can complicate the question of whether there is reasonable suspicion. “It is incredibly difficult in these types of operations to make a determination as to whether or not there’s sufficient factors there that would suggest someone’s in the country unlawfully and were deportable,” Mr. Sandweg said.

The acting U.S. attorney for Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, delivered a pointed message on social media after Wednesday’s raid. “For those who thought immigration enforcement had stopped in Southern California, think again,” he wrote. “The enforcement of federal law is not negotiable, and there are no sanctuaries from the reach of the federal government.”

After the appeals court ruling last week, Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles called the court’s decision “a victory” for the city. On Wednesday, her office criticized the raid, particularly the use of a rental truck.

“For months federal agents have been masking themselves and now they’re using rental trucks to conduct their seemingly discriminatory raids — these tactics are dangerous,” the mayor’s office said. “Tactics like this are un-American and we will never accept these terrorizing ploys as a new normal.”

The order, which applies to the six counties covered by the federal court for the Central District of California, prohibits stopping and detaining people based on any one or combination of four factors: apparent race or ethnicity; speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent; being at a particular location, such as a bus stop or day-laborer pickup site; or doing a certain type of work.

In a statement, Mohammad Tajsar, a senior attorney with the A.C.L.U., faulted federal agents’ conduct in carrying out immigration enforcement. “As shown at every step in the case thus far, the government seems unwilling to fulfill the aims of its racist mass deportation agenda without breaking the law,” he said.

Eunisses Hernandez, a Los Angeles City Council member whose district includes Westlake, said in a statement that the operation was “in clear violation of the temporary restraining order.”

“It is clear,” Ms. Hernandez said, “that Angelenos — my constituents — are being racially profiled and hunted for political points.”

As they did on Wednesday, agents have frequently targeted locations where immigrants are known to gather, such as Home Depot lots, where day laborers often wait for work. But the use of the rental truck during Wednesday’s raid was a change in tactics by agents, who have often arrived in vehicles that are unmarked but still recognizable as law enforcement.

Videos of the operation show agents with U.S. Border Patrol insignia emerging from the back of a Penske box truck.

In a statement, the company said it prohibited the transportation of people in the cargo area of its vehicles. “The company was not made aware that its trucks would be used in today’s operation and did not authorize this,” it said.