Supreme Court lifts limits on immigration raids in the Los Angeles area

A divided Supreme Court on Monday lifted a ruling by a lower-court judge who placed limits on immigration raids in the Los Angeles area after finding federal agents were indiscriminately targeting people based on race and other factors.

The justices sided with the Trump administration, which argued that a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge in California was hampering its ability to crack down on illegal migration and that the stops by authorities were not unlawful.

While the ruling only applies to counties in Southern California, immigrant advocates feared it would open the door to racial profiling of Hispanic people across the United States.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has vowed to expand mass arrests in other sanctuary jurisdictions. On Monday, ICE officials announced the start of “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois with the goal of detaining and deporting immigrants who commit crimes.

“This stay reaffirms what we’ve always known: lower court activist judges are trying to impede the President from lawfully carrying out the American people’s agenda,” Abigail Jackson, a Trump administration spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We look forward to full vindication on this front in short order, but in the meantime, the Trump Administration will continue fulfilling its mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens.”

The majority on the high court did not offer a rationale for the decision, which is common in cases decided on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion that illegal immigration is a major issue in the Los Angeles area. He opined that race can be considered along with other factors in forming reasonable suspicion to stop someone for an immigration check, such as where people are gathering and what jobs they are working.

“To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors,” Kavanaugh wrote.

The court’s three liberal justices sharply dissented.

“We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the dissent. “Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”

Immigrant advocates said the ruling set a dangerous precedent.

About 250 National Guard troops remain in the city.

The plaintiffs said they will continue the legal fight, and a hearing for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for Sept. 24, said Alvaro Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy for Immigrant Defenders Law Center in California.

Angelica Salas, executive director for the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, which is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the Supreme Court decision, while not based on the merits of the case, sends a clear signal to Latino Americans and noncitizens: You do not deserve protection.

Salas accused immigration enforcement officers in the Los Angeles area of using racial profiling in their weekslong operation to justify arrests that had led to the detainment of U.S. citizens, harassment, broken bones and the death of at least one person.

She said she expected more of the aggressive tactics employed by roving bands of federal officers targeting Latino-populated neighborhoods to come as a result of the decision.

“Our Constitution is very clear in that it applies to all persons living in the United States as being entitled to civil rights,” Salas said. “Unless you decide we are not people, you are saying we don’t have rights in this country, citizen or noncitizen.”

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom also criticized the ruling.

“Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court majority just became the Grand Marshal for a parade of racial terror in Los Angeles,” Newsom said in a statement.

The raids sparked major protests in Southern California, some featuring clashes between demonstrators and police. President Donald Trump deployed roughly 5,000 National Guard troops and Marines in response. Newsom and local officials objected and sued to stop the deployment. Most of the troops have since been sent home.

The raids began in early June, as part of what Trump officials described as “the largest mass deportation operation in history.” The administration set a goal of detaining more than 3,000 undocumented immigrants each day across the country. Agents targeted bus stops, parks, schools, and businesses such as Home Depot and 7-Eleven.

Three people who were detained in the raids sued seeking their release. The case was later certified as a class action and was joined by a union, advocates for immigrants and others who had been stopped.

The plaintiffs alleged federal immigration officers “have adopted a policy and practice of conducting immigration operations in violation of their obligation to stop individuals in public only if there is reasonable suspicion.”

The Fourth Amendment requires authorities to have specific evidence a person is in the country illegally to make such a stop, but the plaintiffs asserted Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were profiling targets based on their race or ethnicity, whether they spoke Spanish or accented English, where they were located, or what job they were performing.

“Numerous U.S. citizens and others who are lawfully present in this country have been subjected to significant intrusions on their liberty,” the plaintiffs wrote in a filing with the Supreme Court. “Many have been physically injured; at least two were taken to a holding facility.”

The plaintiffs’ filings with the Supreme Court highlight several cases of Latino U.S. citizens being detained in raids at a tow yard, a bus stop and a car wash as proof of the indiscriminate nature of the stops. Some were stopped multiple times.

Jason Brian Gavidia, a U.S. citizen who was born in East Los Angeles, was slammed against a metal gate by two immigration agents who confronted him and questioned him about whether he was a citizen, according to the lawsuit.

The agents took Gavidia’s identification and phone, before setting him free about 20 minutes later, according to the lawsuit. Gavidia said his ID was never returned.

In July, the plaintiffs asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order requiring the federal government to have established reasonable suspicion before conducting an immigration-related stop.

U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, a Biden appointee, found there was a “mountain of evidence” that authorities were conducting unlawful stops targeting low-wage workers at public locations at least in part based on their apparent ethnicity.

Frimpong enjoined the government from conducting raids based on four factors alone or in combination: race, speaking Spanish or accented English, presence in certain locations and occupation. The decision was later upheld by an appeals court.

Trump officials appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, saying the Los Angeles area was a key enforcement priority in the administration’s crackdown on illegal migration because it was home to an estimated 2 million undocumented people mostly from Mexico and Central America.

Trump officials said they should be able to use the factors prohibited by Frimpong in forming an overall assessment of reasonable suspicion. They said it is well established that some types of employers seek to hire undocumented immigrants in certain locations, and that migrants often gravitate toward jobs that don’t require papers, such as landscaping and construction.