While ICE agents were out in Los Angeles on the Fourth of July 2025, at least one of them was busy texting his colleagues about all the 'tonks' selling food in Long Beach. That slur, along with 'wet,' the abbreviated version of a slur used against undocumented Mexicans, showed up repeatedly in internal communications now made public through federal court documents. Happy Independence Day, everyone.
What the Texts Actually Say
The Guardian obtained newly released court filings from a lawsuit brought by five men against the Trump administration, and the messages are not subtle. On July 4, 2025, an unidentified ICE agent wrote in a group text chain, 'btw tonks everywhere selling food for the 4th festivities in long beach right now.' Two days earlier, a different agent wrote, 'Some of these people are stupid. Why would you post on social media that you're wet.'
Both 'tonks' and 'wet' are slurs with documented histories. The US Border Patrol itself has previously warned agents against using 'tonks.' These are not obscure terms that someone could stumble into by accident. These are words you have to know to use, and these agents knew them and used them casually in official communications while conducting immigration enforcement operations.
The slurs appeared in more than one message thread, according to The Guardian's reporting. This was not one rogue agent having a bad day. It was baked into the conversation.
The Lawsuit Behind the Documents
The texts came to light through a motion filed Monday in a case five men brought against the Trump administration in June 2025. The lawsuit alleges that ICE agents during the Los Angeles raids were making stops and arrests based on race and socioeconomic status, not on any legitimate immigration enforcement criteria.
Three of the plaintiffs were arrested while waiting at a bus stop to be picked up for work. A fourth had his arm twisted and was shoved against a gate while he was actively telling agents he was a US citizen. Lawyers for the group have asked a federal judge to prohibit any further detention stops based on race or socioeconomic status.
In a December deposition cited in the filing, an ICE officer who led the bus stop operation described the people he flagged as possibly undocumented as 'older Hispanic males' who appeared to be 'loitering for work.' Standing at a bus stop, waiting to go to a job. That was the intelligence.
US Citizens Got Swept Up Too
Angel Santiago Tafolla is an Anaheim resident, a US citizen, and not one of the plaintiffs. He filed a court declaration describing what happened when ICE agents swept through the car wash where he worked in Orange County. He was handcuffed and put in a van before agents figured out he was American.
His explanation for why he was targeted while lighter-skinned coworkers who also fled were not chased: 'I feel that I was chased because I am a darker-skinned Latino.' That is not a paranoid interpretation of events. That is a man describing what happened to him while looking at the facts in front of him.
Maya Joachin, deputy director of immigrants' rights at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said in a press release that the records show 'a pattern of racial profiling.' She said immigration officers are 'flagrantly violating the law by detaining people without justification and often primarily because of the color of their skin.' The ACLU does not tend to use the word 'flagrantly' lightly.
DHS Response: Performative Outrage, You Say?
The Department of Homeland Security, for its part, is not exactly doing contrite. A spokesperson told CalMatters, regarding the new court filings: 'Our agents are focused on protecting the American people, not entertaining performative outrage.' DHS did not respond to The Guardian's separate request for comment.
So the official position is that people upset about federal agents calling immigrants 'tonks' in group texts and handcuffing US citizens at car washes are putting on a performance. Got it. The agency whose agents put their slurs in writing is lecturing everyone else about what is and is not authentic.
The Los Angeles raids already triggered massive protests and a full-blown confrontation between the Trump administration and California state and city officials. Trump responded by sending in the National Guard, describing the situation as a 'migrant invasion' that required him to 'liberate' Los Angeles. A city of four million people. From food vendors on the Fourth of July.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to believe these were professional law enforcement operations focused on public safety. Then you read the texts. An agent sees people selling food at a holiday celebration and his instinct is to fire off a slur to his colleagues. Another agent sees an undocumented person on social media and his instinct is a different slur, casually deployed, no apparent concern that any of this is being written down in official communications. These are not aberrations. This is what the culture looked like from the inside.
The detail that keeps demanding attention is Angel Tafolla getting handcuffed and loaded into a van while his lighter-skinned coworkers, who also ran, were simply not pursued. ICE did not have intelligence on Tafolla. ICE did not have a tip on Tafolla. ICE had a look at Tafolla, made a decision in seconds, and put him in restraints. He was released when they realized their mistake, which is the part that is supposed to make us feel better about the rest of it.
The DHS calling public outrage over this 'performative' is the tell. Agencies that believe they acted properly conduct investigations and issue findings. Agencies that know what their people were doing call the critics dramatic and wait for the news cycle to move on. A federal judge is now being asked to issue an injunction. The texts are in the record. Whatever DHS wants to call the reaction, the paper trail is not going anywhere.
