A potential class-action lawsuit has emerged from some of the 400 individuals detained at a Wilder horse racing track in October, with plaintiffs arguing that the operation was an overreach of power that utilized racial profiling.

Tuesday afternoon, the ACLU held a press conference announcing the historic lawsuit. According to the organization, the case serves as “the first major challenge in the second Trump administration to ICE tactics that discriminate based on ethnicity.”

The lawsuit’s seven Latino plaintiffs are all citizens or lawful permanent residents.

Defendants in the lawsuit include U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Sub-Office Director Kenneth Porter; FBI Salt Lake City Office Special Agent Robert Bohls; FBI Boise Special Agent Chris Sheehan; FBI Special Agent Jake Sheridan; Idaho State Police Director Bill Gardiner; Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue; Nampa Police Chief Joe Huff; and Caldwell Police Chief Rex Ingram.

Donahue, Huff and Ingram are described in the lawsuit as “final policymakers” in planning and executing the raid.

The defendants did not immediately reply to requests for comment on Tuesday night. The Canyon County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment.

At the time of the raid, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made a lasting impression in Idaho with the operation carried out during an event at La Catedral Arena, as previously reported by the Idaho Press. Race attendees were zip-tied and detained as officers interrogated their residential status. As ICE searched for illegal immigrants, they also held citizens, green card holders and minors.

The lawsuit hinges on the argument that the warrant utilized in the operation was not enough to allow the detainment of hundreds of people who were not participating in criminal activity.

The warrant, obtained by the FBI, was for five individuals who were allegedly involved in an unlicensed gambling operation — a nonviolent crime, the lawsuit states. On the day of the raid, four of the five were arrested, along with 105 attendees who were taken into custody.

“This looked nothing like a normal criminal warrant execution, because it wasn’t,” Jen Rolnick Borchetta of the ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project said at Tuesday’s news conference. “Law enforcement knew this was a place where Latino families gather. They chose a peak time when hundreds of people would be present, and used a narrow criminal warrant as a Trojan horse for what they really wanted to do, which is to round up as many people as possible for civil immigration arrests.”

Borchetta has a background in police misconduct cases and served as an attorney for Floyd v. City of New York which established that stop-and-frisk practices were unconstitutional. Looking at the Wilder raid, Borchetta said that attendees were targeted for being Latino.

“I have never seen so much direct evidence of racial targeting, of ethnic targeting, as I have in this case,” she said.

During the hours-long operation, officers used armored trucks, helicopters, flash-bang grenades, snipers and had guns drawn, according to the ACLU. Attendees were zip-tied by officers in the dirt of the Wilder horse track and kept for what the lawsuit described as “four-hours of detention in inhumane conditions.”

The lawsuit lists instances of unequal treatment of detainees depending on their race. Some white individuals were allegedly given time to cooperate with officers, while Hispanic-presenting individuals were swiftly knocked down. It also described hateful treatment by officers, including the use of racial slurs. Paul Southwick, ACLU of Idaho legal director, described the operation as racial profiling on a mass scale.

In the lawsuit, plaintiffs paint a jarring image of that day in Wilder. While detainees were zip-tied and made to wait for hours, access to food, water and bathrooms was often denied according to the suit. In one alleged instance, a 10-year-old girl who needed to use the bathroom was made to relieve herself in the middle of the crowded track.

At one point, a witness recounts officers shooting at an SUV with an automatic rifle from the top of their vehicle.

One plaintiff, a 15-year-old boy, said he asked officers to loosen his zip-ties and told them he was only 15. After being denied, he said he later asked another officer, who instead mocked him and further tightened the ties. By the time he was able to have the zip-ties removed, the teen said his wrists were bleeding and he still has lasting scars.

According to ACLU’s press release, the raid involved over 200 law enforcement officers at the federal, state and local levels. The lawsuit contends that local law enforcement may have played a substantial role in the operation.

The basis of the ACLU’s case utilizes laws passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, known as the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. As explained in the lawsuit, the laws countered “a campaign of racialized terror” by private citizens and state officials against the freed Black population. The laws prohibit anyone from conspiring to use state power to deprive individuals of their equal rights.

In this unique case, the ACLU is arguing that the partnership between local, state and federal entities goes against these laws. By planning to detain, search and interrogate a largely Latino population, the ACLU believes that the Wilder raid was a violation.

According to the lawsuit, the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office sent its SWAT team; the Nampa Police Department sent at least 26 officers which may or may not include its 14 SWAT team officers; and the Caldwell Police Department sent at least 16 officers, which may or may not include its SWAT team that was also deployed.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants failed to intervene during improper actions during the raid. These local officers allegedly did not intervene when individuals were illegally searched, interrogated without adequate suspicion or put in harmful conditions, the lawsuit says.

“If the operation was not going according to plan, each and any of the defendants could have intervened. They did not,” the lawsuit reads.

During the press conference, ACLU of Idaho Executive Director Leo Morales spoke from the perspective of not only a Wilder native, but an Idaho native.

“What happened in Wilder struck at something many Idahoans instinctively fear — a powerful government descending on a community with overwhelming force and a disregard for families, children and the Constitution,” Morales said.

In next steps, law enforcement agencies and defendants will respond to the ACLU’s complaint. They can respond to the allegations or request to dismiss the case. A response will begin the discovery process of collecting evidence. A dismissal of the case would need to be approved by the court. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho.

“Regardless of (one’s) political affiliation, immigration or citizenship status, when government tests the limits of its power in one town, it sets a precedent for what it believes it can do everywhere,” Morales said. “When children are zip-tied and screamed at, when constitutional protections are brushed aside, the harm extends far beyond that day. It reaches every community that wonders whether they might be next.”