Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday reported that large-scale immigration raids in Los Angeles, carried out by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies this year, violated Latino residents’ civil rights and utilized racial profiling.

According to the organization, since May ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and other federal law enforcement agencies have staged hundreds of raids across Los Angeles at workplaces and public areas occupied by Latinos. Agents allegedly targeted food vendors, car washes, and Home Depot parking lots.

ICE arrest data reportedly showed a sharp increase in arrests from May through July, with only five percent of arrestees previously convicted for violence or sex offenses. Officials allegedly pressured individuals to accept “voluntary departures” and detained them under abusive conditions that included shackling, denial of food and water, and lacking access to family and lawyers.

The organization said that the agents were “choosing whom to detain based on assumptions about their immigration status due to their perceived race, ethnicity, or national origin or their presence in a location or occupation the agents believed made them more suspicious.”

The report described agents arriving in unmarked vehicles, sometimes masked and armed with military-style weapons. Witnesses recounted instances of excessive officer force, including car windows smashed and people pulled from their vehicles. A temporary restraining order issued by a federal district court in July barred investigatory stops based solely on race, ethnicity or language. However, the US Supreme Court stayed the order in September, allowing operations to continue.

HRW said the raids have caused fear, separating individuals from their families, and the mass incarcerations have affected the economy. The group called on the US government to stop this “violent campaign” that “violates human rights on a vast scale.”