By Brad Brooks
Dec 3 (Reuters) – California has launched an online portal to allow the public to send videos, photos and other evidence of possible crimes committed by federal immigration agents, joining other states that have launched similar efforts in response to President Donald Trump’s nationwide crackdown on undocumented migrants.
U.S. immigration agents, often masked and employing aggressive tactics, have carried out large-scale operations in Los Angeles and other cities. Immigrant rights groups across the U.S. have frequently accused federal agents of using unnecessarily violent tactics to intimidate immigrant communities and of detaining people indiscriminately.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration agents, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but has defended its agents’ actions in the past and said it is lawfully carrying out Trump’s orders to deport people who are illegally in the U.S.
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office said in a social media post that the portal was meant to “assist members of the public in sharing information” so that the state’s Department of Justice can “create a record of potential unlawful conduct by federal agents, and inform possible legal actions the state may take to protect Californians’ rights.”
The portal’s site states that “examples of potentially unlawful activity by federal law enforcement agents include use of excessive force, unlawful searches or arrests, wrongful detentions, interference with voting, or other civil-rights violations.”
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker in September urged residents to take videos of federal immigration operations and put them on social media. In October, his administration created the independent Illinois Accountability Commission to gather evidence and take testimony from citizens on the conduct of federal agents and to recommend courses of action the government can take to seek justice.
New York’s Attorney General Letitia James in October urged the public to submit videos, photos and other evidence of federal immigration raids for her office to review.
People across the U.S. have used their phones to both track the movements of federal immigration agents and to record their work, leading the Trump administration to say that such efforts have led to a spike in violence against those agents. In October, Apple and Alphabet both said they had removed apps created to track immigration agents from their online stores.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Editing by Frank McGurty and Lincoln Feast.)
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