How a Gambling Warrant Could Change Immigration Enforcement Authority

(Gigi Liman – Lawfare) On a Sunday afternoon in October 2025, hundreds of community members from the majority Latino city of Wilder, Idaho, poured into the La Catedral horse racetrack for a popular weekly event with horse racing, Mexican food vendors, music, and family-friendly games. In the weeks prior, the FBI had obtained warrants to arrest five individuals—including the racetrack’s owner—for allegedly gambling without a license, along with a warrant to search portions of the property related to the gambling. The investigators executed those warrants on that Sunday. What unfolded, however, bore little resemblance to a typical search and arrest for nonviolent gambling offenses. As the attendees began to gather for lunch, 200 federal, state, and local officers descended on the property, armed with guns and tactical gear, with helicopters and drones overhead. The consortium of law enforcement officers detained 400 adults and children, the majority of whom were citizens or lawful residents, hours after those accused of gambling violations were taken into custody until their citizenship status could be verified. Detainees were reportedly grouped based on perceived ethnicity; Latino-appearing attendees were allegedly denied water, referred to as “monsters,” and treated with more physical aggression than their lighter-skinned counterparts. A putative class-action lawsuit, Rodriguez, et al. v. Porter, et al., filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho in February, contends that law enforcement used the existence of the gambling warrants as a pretext to illegally target and detain Latino families and violate their civil rights. The plaintiffs have turned to an unconventional statutory tool to support their case: Reconstruction-era conspiracy statutes originally enacted to combat the Ku Klux Klan. – How a Gambling Warrant Could Change Immigration Enforcement Authority | Lawfare