The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles federal court, seeking records about the agency’s use of a full-body restraint suit on immigrants during transportation and deportation flights. Detainees call the device, known as The WRAP, “the burrito” or “the bag”; people who have been restrained in it report difficulty breathing, chest pressure, loss of sensation and serious injuries.
The ACLU’s complaint alleges that ICE has used the restraint on immigrants during deportation flights and kept them in it for prolonged periods, as first reported by the Los Angeles Daily News. The lawsuit says ICE personnel used the device to punish people who protested deportation or tried to reach their attorneys. The newspaper also reported that medical and use-of-force experts have warned that prolonged or improper use of full-body restraints can cause positional asphyxia, circulatory distress and death.
The FOIA request seeks records showing how extensively and in what circumstances ICE uses the WRAP, what policies govern its deployment, and how the agency monitors safety and legal compliance. The ACLU says it needs the records to assess whether ICE’s practices meet constitutional requirements, medically accepted standards and the agency’s obligations, according to the Daily News. ICE did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment, the newspaper reported.
A Federal Watchdog Raised Alarms Years Before the Lawsuit
This is not the first time the WRAP has drawn federal scrutiny. In September 2023, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties issued a formal Recommendation Memorandum concluding that ICE lacked sufficient operational policies, guidance or monitoring for the device, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights office. That office opened a complaint alleging ICE did not operate the WRAP according to manufacturer instructions, failed to consider detainees’ medical and psychological conditions before using it, and lacked sufficient monitoring of its use, findings the office folded into its annual report to Congress. The Daily News separately reported that ICE’s own Air Operations Handbook provides little substantive guidance on when, how or under what safeguards the WRAP may be deployed.
That internal oversight function no longer exists in the same form. In early 2025, DHS largely dismantled the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the division that authored the 2023 review, labeling it an impediment to enforcement operations, the Associated Press reported. The closure came amid a broader rollback of internal federal civil rights monitoring units, leaving outside groups like the ACLU to pursue transparency through FOIA litigation and the courts instead.
Detainee Accounts Describe Hours of Immobilization
An Associated Press investigation published in October 2025 reported accounts from deportees who said they were immobilized in the WRAP for extended periods on international flights. One Nigerian detainee said he was held in the suit for 16 hours on a flight to West Africa; another man suffered a concussion and a dislocated jaw in 2023. The AP reported that noncitizens described being restrained after asking to speak with legal counsel or protesting deportation orders. According to the wire service, manufacturer Safe Restraints, Inc. designed the WRAP as a short-term emergency tool for violently combative people, while ICE added custom metal chest rings and used the suits during routine, multi-hour transport operations. Medical experts told the AP that the modification adds rigid pressure points and keeps people in seated stress positions, increasing asphyxia risks.
Medical experts have cautioned that prolonged immobilization in seated or bent-forward positions raises the danger of breathing impairment and circulatory distress, and identified people with respiratory or cardiac conditions as especially vulnerable, according to the Daily News. The AP identified a dozen fatal cases over the past decade in which the WRAP restraint played a role in the deaths.
Congress and the Courts Are Also Weighing In
The lawsuit lands amid a broader push in Washington to restrict the device altogether. U.S. Representative Delia Ramirez introduced the Full-Body Restraint Prohibition Act in February, which would bar DHS from using federal funds to acquire or deploy full-body restraint devices such as the WRAP, according to Ramirez’s office. The bill followed media investigations and congressional records documenting at least 41 fatal law enforcement incidents nationwide involving the WRAP, with autopsies in at least 12 cases over the past decade confirming that physical restraint contributed to death.
What the Public Record Shows—and What It Does Not
The September 2023 DHS civil-rights review described above identified gaps in ICE’s policies, guidance and monitoring, and examined concerns about following manufacturer instructions, considering detainees’ medical and psychological conditions, and monitoring use. According to the Associated Press, a then-DHS official involved in the review said ICE agreed with some findings but disputed classifying the WRAP as a “four-point restraint.” That account does not specify which safeguards ICE adopted, if any, or establish a public ICE response to the review. Public data sources also leave limits on comparisons. The Bureau of Justice Statistics says its collection of arrest-related deaths from local and state law enforcement agencies was suspended in 2014. The Bureau of Justice Assistance cautions that reporting gaps may affect the accuracy and completeness of state-reported Death in Custody Reporting Act data. These program descriptions do not establish whether public federal data identify WRAP use as a distinct factor, so they do not provide a basis for a complete device-specific count.
The financial stakes of restraint-related deaths were underscored in February, when a federal jury awarded $8.3 million to the family of 17-year-old Cedric Lofton, who died in 2021 after officers placed him in a WRAP restraint before transferring him to a Kansas juvenile facility, per the Los Angeles Times. The teenager’s death was attributed to cardiac arrest following physical subdual and prone restraint. ICE and Customs and Border Protection rely on private contractors, including The GEO Group, CoreCivic and G4S Secure Solutions, to handle ground transportation between detention centers and airports where WRAP restraints are applied, according to ACLU court filings.
The FOIA suit also arrives against a backdrop of heightened judicial scrutiny of ICE operations across the region. It follows a preliminary injunction issued this month by U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong blocking warrantless ICE civil arrests across seven Southern California counties, as Hoodline previously reported. That injunction covers Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. By contrast, municipal police departments in California, including the Berkeley Police Department, require officers to complete mandatory Use of Restraint Device Reports whenever a body wrap or spit hood is deployed, with immediate supervisory review, according to city of Berkeley records — a documentation standard the ACLU’s lawsuit suggests ICE has not matched.
