Two Los Angeles arrests highlight stark contrasts between immigration and criminal justice systems

On June 18, 2025, ICE agents in plain clothes seized Pedro Vasquez Perdomo and his coworkers at a Pasadena bus stop, handcuffed and chained him, and transported him to B-18, a basement immigration processing facility in downtown Los Angeles that lawyers describe as a “black hole” because detainees are hard to locate. Eleven days earlier, Brayan Ramos-Brito, a U.S. citizen protesting a DHS office in Paramount, was arrested by federal agents, taken to Santa Ana City Jail, and entered the federal criminal system with a public defender and a judge reviewing his detention.

The two cases illustrate the divergent procedural safeguards: criminal defendants receive prompt court hearings, public filings and government-provided counsel, while immigration detainees often lack a warrant, face secretive transfers, and struggle to secure legal representation. Both men joined a lawsuit, Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin, claiming that ICE’s broad, race-based stops during “Operation at Large” violate the Fourth Amendment and that the agency’s secrecy breaches Fifth Amendment due-process rights. Lawyers argue that ICE’s warrantless arrests invert the usual requirement of establishing probable cause before detention, and that the lack of transparent documentation hampers detainees’ ability to challenge their confinement.