U.S. Park Police have been pulling over migrant workers in commercial vans and funneling them directly to ICE agents with neither a warrant nor probable cause, court records show.
The revelation emerged from a review of filings in a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), The Washington Post reported Sunday. The suit alleges DHS broke federal law by making immigration arrests in Washington without warrants.
The review—conducted by Capital News Service and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland—identified at least 10 ICE arrests involving Park Police in the D.C. area, at least three targeting workers driving commercial vehicles.
“I think it’s obvious they’re profiling,” said Austin Rose, an attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights who represents plaintiffs in the case. “They pull over a work truck, assuming it’s going to be a Latino man. That’s the basis for what they’re doing.”
The arrests span several months. In one case, a Guatemalan man—identified in filings under the pseudonym Camilo Doe—was tailed along Rock Creek Parkway and into the Petworth neighborhood, where he was stopped at a market, because officers said his van was carrying a ladder.
His plates and registration were current, and he had driven that route nearly every day without incident, yet immigration agents arrived on the scene, and he was detained.
In a separate December arrest, a pool maintenance technician was stopped at a road barricade just outside the city during a multiagency operation involving ICE, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Diplomatic Security Service.
ICE scanned his license, arresting him immediately, then snapped the document in two, telling him he had no right to be in the country, the man said in a sworn declaration. This was despite his having no criminal record, no outstanding ICE warrant, and having lived in the United States for 13 years.
A third December arrest targeted a mechanical repair worker from Nicaragua who was present in the country on humanitarian parole; he was dispatched to a detention center for deportation.
The joint operations flow from Trump’s “Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful” executive order, which established a task force linking local law enforcement with federal agencies, including DHS and the Department of the Interior, which has authority over Park Police.
Naureen Shah, director of government affairs for the equality division of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the pattern matched what her organization had documented across the country, with agencies leveraging routine legal authorities, from traffic violations to commercial vehicle inspections, to stop drivers and demand immigration papers.
Park Police insists it plays no immigration enforcement role, maintaining that all stops are made on traffic and public safety grounds. A spokesperson pointed to a longstanding ban on commercial vehicles using certain parkways—citing low-clearance bridges and narrower lanes—and said violations typically draw a citation. “After we have completed the reason for our stop,” the spokesperson told the Post, “DHS, if present, may have follow-up questions that may result in an arrest.”
The White House defended the arrangement. “President Trump has transformed DC from a crime-ridden mess into a beautiful, clean, safe city,” spokesperson Taylor Rogers told the outlet.
The Park Police is meanwhile set to expand its D.C. roster by more than 300 officers by spring and is currently advertising a $70,000 signing bonus for recruits.
Most declarations in the lawsuit were filed under pseudonyms, with plaintiffs citing fears of retaliation. Advocates say the court documents capture only a fraction of the immigration arrests occurring on Park Police-patrolled roads and parkways.
The Daily Beast contacted the Park Police and DHS for comment. A spokesperson for Parks Police told the Beast: “The task force and our coordination with the Department of Homeland Security and other federal and local law enforcement partners are not secret.
“The U.S. Park Police continue to do what they have always done and will continue to do: enforce the law within their jurisdiction and carry out their mission in accordance with federal law.”
