The Brief

With federal agents conducting more immigration-related arrests throughout Southern California, residents have been active too, capturing on camera those detentions in their communities — by real agents and potential impersonators.

Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel for First Amendment rights at the ACLU of Southern California, said community members have a constitutional right to record government officials engaging in public duties: “Doesn’t matter if it’s LAPD, the L.A. Sheriff’s Department, ICE or Border Patrol.”

But being a bystander also means navigating moments that can take very quick turns.

LAist cannot offer legal counsel, but we have turned to civil rights experts for guidance about how to document these detentions safely and effectively.

What it’s like to be a bystander

Since detentions by the Department of Homeland Security intensified in southeastern L.A. County, local resident Eric Eztli has been monitoring Home Depot parking lots and car washes. He keeps an eye out for suspicious vehicles, as well as for people who, in his view, are racially profiling and unfairly detaining his community members.

Earlier this week, Eztli went to a Home Depot in Huntington Park, bearing witness as men in sage green uniforms, with Border Patrol patches affixed to their sleeves, chased a day laborer. The agents’ faces were covered.

Eztli ran toward them and started to record the interaction on his cellphone.

In his video, Eztli is heard demanding that the agents show a warrant for the man’s arrest. They do not.

One of the agents tackles the day laborer to the ground. Then, three agents hold down the day laborer and handcuff him. As they tie his arms behind his back, one agent pushes the day laborer’s face into the dirt, first with his hand, then with his knee. Eztli repeatedly asks the day laborer for his name. The man manages to say “Jorge” before agents drag him away. “Jorge what?” Eztli shouts after him, trying to get his last name.

As the agents’ unmarked vehicles pulled away from the parking lot, Eztli recorded their license plate numbers.

The scene hurt to watch, he told LAist, but he wanted to gather as many details as he could. Some of it might be of use to Jorge.

“I was going to get his birthday too, but they just took him very quickly,” Eztli said.

Eztli also meant to get a contact number so he could reach out to Jorge’s family and let them know he’d been detained. Full names and birth dates are also required to search for people in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s inmate locator system.

“I think it's important for the community to exercise their right to record and make sure that [agents] are being held accountable,” Eztli added. “But it's hard because they are hiding behind anonymity, so they can do whatever they want — that's why it feels so scary.”

What can bystanders record?

Community members have the right to capture agents’ faces and license plates, Eliasberg said.

Witness, a nonprofit devoted to using video evidence to expose injustice, recommends gathering images of any documents that agents present, including warrants. Community members can also record badges, weapons and uniforms. Video of the context in which detention takes place — including street signs, landmarks and any cameras that might be affixed to nearby buildings — can be used to authenticate the footage and corroborate community members’ experiences.

How close can you be to law enforcement?

How far away must community members be while recording interactions between agents and detainees?

“There's no tape measure rule,” Eliasberg said. “You have a right to record, and you have a right to be pretty close. You just can't get in the way so much that you're interfering with what the officer's trying to do.”

Eliasberg also noted that there may be public safety reasons for law enforcement to close off an area, including crime scenes and disaster zones.

Witness encourages community members to “film openly and comply with any instructions agents give you.”

But “if the agents tell you to stop filming, you can tell them: ‘I am exercising my right to document this arrest,” a Witness instructional video adds. And if agents ask you to step back, “document yourself complying.”

Can you ask agents to identify themselves?

Given that agents continue to cover their faces, use unmarked vehicles and sometimes wear plain clothes, community members have increasingly demanded that they identify themselves. This, too, is permissible, Eliasberg said.

“The public has a right to ask: ‘Who are you? What is your name?’” he added. “They may not get an answer, but they have an absolute right to ask that question.”

If community members don’t get answers, Eliasberg said, “trying to take a photograph of the badge to see the name is a perfectly appropriate response.”

Can you ask detainees questions?

In videos circulating across social media, community members have also taken to asking detainees three questions:

1. What is your full name?
2. What is your birthday and year?
3. Who can we call?

Eliasberg said this is “absolutely permissible.”

At the ACLU of Southern California, he added, “we are hearing stories all the time where people are saying: ‘I have no idea what happened to my family member.’ I mean, literally, they've been snatched off the street, or they don't even know. They just don't come home one night.”

Can you remind detainees about their rights?

Community members also have the right to tell people who are being arrested that they have rights, Eliasberg said. This includes the right to remain silent and not to sign any documents.

“You're simply informing them what their constitutional rights are,” he said.

What if officers try to take your phone?

Witness and Eliasberg emphasized that agents cannot take your phone if you're simply trying to record what's happening. They also can’t force you to delete your footage. But they may try anyway.

To help create a barrier, Witness recommends that community members lock their phones with a passcode, which are protected under the Fifth Amendment. (Fingerprint IDs and facial recognition are not.)

If you feel that your civil rights have been violated, you can seek help from organizations like the ACLU, which offers free services.

“The problem,” Eliasberg said, “is we don't necessarily have the resources to help everybody.”

After filming, Witness recommends making a backup copy of the footage you’ve captured on a separate device.

How footage can help community members

The morning of June 17, Oscar Preciado went to a Walmart in Pico Rivera to pick up merchandise for his work as an Instacart shopper.

That day, 20-year-old Adrian Martinez was detained and taken by Border Patrol — even though he’s a U.S. citizen.

Preciado was in the parking lot. When he saw the agents appear, he whipped out his phone.

In a conversation with LAist, Preciado said he and other community members were recording the agents’ vehicles and license plates when he noticed that “they were throwing someone to the ground.”

Preciado ran over to capture what was happening.

“It was horrifying to witness,” he added. “The kid weighs 110 pounds, maybe, and he was being thrown around by these big guys.”

The federal government later said that Martinez was detained for punching officers. But after watching video footage, a federal judge said he threw no punches.

Martinez has since been released from custody on bond. He also lost his job. But he is home with his family.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit from Huntington Beach challenging the state’s sanctuary law. That law prohibits local law enforcement from assisting with federal immigration enforcement, except in the case of serious crimes.

The decision marks Huntington Beach’s second failed attempt to sue California over the sanctuary law, SB 54, known as the California Values Act. This time, the city had legal help from America First Legal, a conservative law firm founded by Steven Miller, the architect of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement strategy.

Shortly before Trump took office in January, taking office, America First Legal sent letters to hundreds of elected officials in cities and states with sanctuary laws, warning them that they could face legal consequences for allegedly impeding federal immigration enforcement.

What did the city argue?

The city argued that SB 54 is unconstitutional and that prohibiting the city from cooperating with federal immigration authorities inhibits its ability to combat crime.

The city was joined in the lawsuit by Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff and 2026 gubernatorial candidate.

What did the judge rule?

U.S. District Court Judge Sunshine S. Sykes ruled that, based on precedent, the city lacks standing to sue the state on constitutional grounds in federal court.

Read the judge's ruling.

What’s next?

The complaint was dismissed without prejudice, meaning the city could try again to challenge the sanctuary law in court. No word yet on whether the city will do that.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to move forward with a proposed ordinance that prohibits law enforcement officers from concealing their identities while interacting with the public in unincorporated areas of the county.

The proposal would require all officers and agents — local, state or federal — to refrain from wearing masks or other facial coverings. It also mandates that they display visible identification, including their agency name along with either their last name or badge number.

Supervisor Janice Hahn said the concealment of officers’ identities during these raids undermines public trust and creates unnecessary fear.

"We need to declare in no uncertain terms that in Los Angeles County, police do not hide their faces," said Hahn, who sponsored and co-authored the ordinance. "That is our expectation, and this ordinance will now make it a local law."

In a statement to LAist, federal immigration officials defended officers wearing masks. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said L.A. County's ordinance is unconstitutional.

“Our officers wear masks to protect themselves from being doxed and targeted by highly sophisticated gangs like Tren de Aragua and MS-13, “ McLaughlin said in the statement. “Criminal rings, murderers, and rapists who attempt to go after the officers and their families."

She also noted a provision of the U.S. Constitution that says federal law prevails over conflicting state law.

McLaughlin said L.A. County’s proposed ordinance would “violate the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which makes it clear that Los Angeles does not control federal law enforcement.”

The supervisors approved the first reading of the proposed ordinance in a 4-0 vote, with Supervisor Kathryn Barger abstaining.

They are expected to vote a second time on Dec. 9 to adopt the ordinance. If adopted, the new law would go into effect 30 days later.

Enforcement questions

According to county officials, violations would be punishable as infractions or misdemeanors. But it’s uncertain how L.A. County will enforce the new ordinance. It mirrors California’s first-in-the-nation state law passed in September.

The Trump administration has said its agents will not comply with California’s mask ban. And the Department of Justice sued California in November, challenging it.

Hahn said L.A. County will wait to see the outcome of that lawsuit before determining how to enforce the new ordinance.

“We’re going to wait until it plays out in court,” she said.

County officials said the ordinance was prompted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps that began in June.

Federal agents wearing plainclothes, tactical gear and masks conducted what county supervisors describe in the motion as “violent and indiscriminate operations in immigrant communities.”

“ These agents hide their faces and refuse to wear badges,” Hahn said. “They pull people into unmarked vans at gunpoint, and then they wonder why people resist arrest.”

“This is how authoritarian secret police behave, not legitimate law enforcement in a democracy,” she added.

Between June and August, the Department of Homeland Security arrested at least 5,000 people in Los Angeles County, including people who had not committed crimes, those with pending legal status and visa holders.

Exemptions

The Board of Supervisors originally approved a motion on July 29 directing County Counsel to draft the ordinance.

County officials said that when officers conceal their faces, it becomes difficult for residents to distinguish actual law enforcement from imposters, increasing the risk of criminal impersonation.

“It’s not public safety, it’s intimidation, plain and simple,” said Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. “Los Angeles County is not going to tolerate it. When the public cannot tell who a real officer is, everyone is at risk.”

Several immigrants’ rights activists showed up at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday to support the county’s move.

“It’s good that it's recognized that this is a problem, but the only way we're gonna actually do anything about it is to keep relying on the community to come out and support,” said Quetzal Ceja, an organizer for South Bay day laborers.

The ordinance includes several exemptions where law enforcement authorities can wear face coverings, including undercover and SWAT operations. They can also wear helmets and other equipment for health reasons or protection against environmental hazards.

If you have ever sworn off social media for a week or two because you sensed it was feeding your anxiety or dampening your mood, you may be on to something.

A new study out last week in JAMA Network Open found that cutting down on social media use even for a week can significantly reduce mental health symptoms in young adults.

It's part of a growing body of research that shows that taking breaks from scrolling and posting can be a mental health boon, especially for young people.

For example, a recently published meta-analysis found that limiting social media is tied to a statistically significant boost in "subjective well-being."

Unreliable data vs. an objective measure

Most studies on the impacts of social media ask users to recall how much time they spend on their phones or these platforms, as well as other aspects of their health like mood and sleep. But that data is often unreliable, says psychiatrist John Torous, director of the Division of Digital Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and author of the new study.

"If you ask me, 'How much have you slept in the past week, and can you guess your screen time?" says Torous, "I don't think I would be right."

In the new study, Torus and his colleagues tried to get a more objective measure of social media use. They recruited 373 young adults ages 18 to 24. For the first two weeks, participants used social media like they normally would and allowed researchers to record information from their phones about their social media use, their step counts and their sleep. They had participants download an app that sent the data directly to the researchers.

2 weeks of observation, 1 week of detox

During the first two weeks of the study, the app gave Torous and his colleagues baseline data. At the end of those two weeks, the researchers shared that data with participants and gave them standardized questionnaires for symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia and loneliness. Then, they asked whether they wanted to try a weeklong social media detox.

"We had 80% of participants opt into the detox," says Dr. Elombe Calvert, a co-author of the study.

At baseline, the participants were spending about two hours a day on the five social media apps the study was looking at: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter). "During the detox, it fell to like 30 minutes a day," says Calvert.

By the end of that third week, Calvert and the team found a 16% reduction in anxiety symptoms, a 24% decrease in depression symptoms and a 14.5% decrease in insomnia symptoms. "So, it's very effective," says Calvert.

Torous notes that the results mirror what his and his colleagues' patients report. "We definitely have had patients telling us for some time that they've tried digital detoxes on their own [and] that they find it useful," he says.

Most participants in the study, however, did not score high enough in the mental health screenings to qualify for a mental health diagnosis, notes Torous. Only a minority showed elevated levels of symptoms at baseline, and this group showed "greater improvement," he says.

Striking results

"It usually takes eight to 12 weeks of intensive psychotherapy to see those kinds of reductions in mental health symptoms," says psychologist Mitch Prinstein, chief of strategy and integration at the American Psychological Association. "So if you can get those with just one week of change in behavior, wow!"

What's also striking, adds Prinstein, is that as the participants cut back on social media use, their screen time didn't go down. They were doing other things on their devices.

"So, it really helps us see that it's not just your screen that's a problem," he says. "It might be social media in particular."

Ready to get some relief yourself? Here are a few tips from experts:

1. Block out time

Using social media mindfully can help, says Prinstein. That can take the form of setting goals for when we check our phones and for what. For example, setting aside 10-minute blocks at specific times to get rid of notifications or check headlines or unread messages. "Doing so seems to work and keeps us from getting distracted or going down rabbit holes for hours," he says. 

2. Make it harder to log on and scroll

Removing apps from the home screen and disabling notifications from social media apps can help too, says psychiatrist Amir Afkhami, at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. So does "logging out of the platform after use, which makes it a little bit harder to get back in," he says.

3. Protect sleep

For many people, social media use affects mood through "nighttime scrolling" by disrupting sleep and contributing to insomnia, says Afkhami. For those individuals, restricting evening or nighttime use is key, he adds. In a study published this year, Torous and his co-authors recommend "at least one hour of tech-free time before bed, to mentally disconnect from the online world and promote adequate, restful sleep." Parents can help teenagers build a habit of not using social media at night by designating bedrooms as "tech-free zones" at night, according to Torous and his colleagues. 

4. Stroll more, scroll less

For those who turn to social media during periods of boredom, Afkhami recommends replacing screen time with physical activity like a walk or a run. "The initial hump is a little bit higher," he says, "but over time, actually, patients end up liking it more because they get more of a dopamine surge than they do with social media." 

5. Seek treatment, if more is going on

For many people, social media overuse is linked to underlying mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety and ADHD, adds Afkhami. And while cutting back on social media might help alleviate some of those symptoms, he recommends that they also seek treatment from a mental health care provider.
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