A civil rights group Wednesday hit back at what it calls the Trump administration’s “retaliatory” arrest last week of a plaintiff involved in a class action lawsuit challenging the government’s illegal immigration raids in Los Angeles.
Isaac Villegas was detained last week during a scheduled check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in downtown Los Angeles.
Villegas is a plaintiff in Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin, a closely watched lawsuit filed in L.A. federal court challenging the raids. The Pasadena day laborer sued the federal government in June 2025, after he and two other workers were arrested by immigration agents as they waited at a bus stop.
An immigration judge ordered Villegas, who is from Panama, released on a $5,000 bond the following month and he’s been checking in with ICE since then, according to his attorney, Stacy Tolchin.
Last week, ICE arrested Villegas as he was attending a scheduled immigration check-in and jailed him again despite the judge’s order granting his release. Chandra Bhatnagar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union SoCal, said the arrest violated Villegas’ First and Fifth Amendment rights “in what appears to be retaliation for speaking out against the Department of Homeland Security.”
“To our knowledge, this is the first retaliatory arrest of a plaintiff challenging ICE raids in the country,” Bhatnagar said in a statement from the ACLU. “Retaliation is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes, and we will not stand for it.”
Tolchin filed a habeas petition seeking Villegas’ freedom, but it has not yet been decided.
“We are committed to protecting the constitutional rights of every courageous person who stands up to the government,” the ACLU added. “We demand DHS release Isaac immediately.”