Trump officials accused of false imprisonment and ‘unconstitutional racial profiling’ over incident in LA

The mother of a 15-year-old boy who was detained at gunpoint by federal immigration agents is seeking $1m in damages and accusing the Trump administration of false imprisonment and “unconstitutional racial profiling”.

The teenager, a US citizen with disabilities, was in a vehicle with his mother outside Arleta high school in Los Angeles on 11 August when masked immigration agents surrounded them and pulled them from the vehicle. They said the boy was a suspect in a crime, and handcuffed him for several minutes until they realized they had the wrong person, the Los Angeles Times reported.

His mother told NBC4 that the agent told her son they had confused him with someone else, but to “look at the bright side: you’re gonna have an exciting story to tell your friends when you go back to school”.

“What’s exciting about getting guns pointed at you?” she said.