FBI-led task force with ICE, local police raided Wilder, Idaho racetrack; detained ~400 including citizens, children with flash-bangs, rubber bullets

On October 19, 2025, more than 200 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers in armored vehicles and helicopters raided La Catedral racetrack in Wilder, Idaho, a venue popular with Latino families for weekend horse races. Officers detained roughly 400 people who were present -- including U.S. citizens and children -- for about four hours, zip-tying many at gunpoint and denying food, water, and bathroom access, according to plaintiffs' accounts, advocates on the scene, and a subsequent lawsuit. Officers threw flash-bang grenades and fired rubber bullets, including into occupied vehicles, per the same accounts.

The operation was carried out under a criminal search warrant tied to an investigation into alleged unlicensed horse-race gambling; the warrant named five people. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said ICE arrested more than 105 people it described as "illegal aliens" and characterized the operation as dismantling an "illegal horse-racing, animal fighting, and gambling enterprise." DHS disputed characterizations that officers restrained or arrested children, saying none of those in ICE custody were minors; the FBI initially said no restraints or rubber bullets were used on children, then revised its statement to specify "young children." Idaho's governor's office said the state provided support for the federal warrant.

Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue and Caldwell Police Chief Rex Ingram publicly disputed DHS's characterization of the raid as ICE-led, calling it "completely false and a serious misrepresentation of the facts." In a joint statement, they said the operation "was led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Metro Violent Crime and Gang Task Force with support from multiple federal, state, and local partners," that the Canyon County Sheriff's Office and Caldwell Police Department participated as longstanding task force members assisting the gambling investigation, and that "ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) were present for the identification and processing of individuals illegally present" -- not to lead the operation. A DHS spokesperson dismissed the officials' account, saying "our statement is correct so he must have misspoken." The Nampa Police Department was separately named, alongside Canyon County and Caldwell, as a defendant in the subsequent lawsuit over its officers' role assisting the warrant's execution.

Plaintiffs and advocates who were present said the operation swept up far more people than the warrant covered: the roughly 400 people detained included spectators and family members with no connection to the gambling investigation. One detained plaintiff, a U.S. citizen born in Idaho, said her three-year-old son was made to hold onto her pocket and cried while she was zip-tied for hours.

Updates

2025-11-19 — Federal judge ordered release of 16 detainees over due-process violations [9, 10, 11]

Senior U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill granted habeas corpus petitions and ordered the release of 16 people who had been held since the raid, ruling that continuing to detain them without a bond hearing violated the Fifth Amendment's due process guarantee. The court found the government had identified no evidence that any petitioner posed a flight risk or danger, joining what the opinion described as the "overwhelming majority" of federal courts to reject the government's no-bond-hearing detention theory. A subsequent investigation found some who were released, and others still held, had been transferred hundreds of miles from Idaho to facilities in Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah, hindering access to counsel and family, and that Idaho State Police had transported detainees without verifying their criminal histories.

2026-02-10 — ACLU filed federal class-action lawsuit over raid [3, 4, 5]

The ACLU, the ACLU of Idaho, and former U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson filed a putative class-action lawsuit, Rodriguez v. Porter (D. Idaho, No. 1:26-cv-00075), on behalf of three Latino families and a putative class of everyone detained at La Catedral who was not criminally arrested. The suit named ICE, FBI, and Idaho State Police officials, plus Canyon County and the cities of Caldwell and Nampa, alleging conspiracy to use a narrow gambling warrant as cover for a racially targeted immigration dragnet in violation of Reconstruction-era civil rights law.

2026-06-23 — Local, state, and federal defendants moved to dismiss the lawsuit [6, 7]

On the court-ordered deadline, all named defendants filed motions asking a federal judge to dismiss the claims against them: a joint motion for Caldwell Police Chief Rex Ingram and Nampa Police Chief Joe Huff, a separate motion for Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue, a motion for Idaho State Police Director Bill Gardiner, and a motion covering ICE Field Sub-Office Director Kenneth Porter and FBI agents Robert Bohls, Chris Sheehan, and Jake Sheridan. The defendants argued officers were lawfully permitted to detain occupants while executing the search warrant and that the complaint did not identify specific unconstitutional conduct by the named officials or a policy that caused a violation.