Supreme Court Lifts ICE Migrant Profiling Ban in LA for Now

Federal immigration agents in Los Angeles can resume using tactics for now that critics say amount to racial profiling, after the US Supreme Court backed the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement efforts.

Over three dissents from the court’s liberal-leaning justices, the conservative majority on Monday put on hold a federal district court order that barred Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from questioning and detaining people based solely on their ethnicity, language, occupation or presence at a particular location.

The Supreme Court’s order will apply while the legal fight continues. Congressman Mark Takano, a California Democrat, joined to discuss redistricting and the administration’s immigration plans.

The majority of justices didn’t issue a joint opinion explaining the decision. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately that he believed the Trump administration is likely to win the case, either on its argument that the challengers lacked legal grounds to argue for broad, future-looking court intervention or the underlying claim that the stops are unconstitutional.

“To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Under this court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors.” He acknowledged this could result in US citizens or other individuals with legal status being stopped, but they would be “free to go after the brief encounter.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, writing that she would not “stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost.”

“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,” Sotomayor wrote. She said the result is that Latinos, US citizens or not, “are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.”

‘Massive Victory’

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social media post that the administration’s “massive victory” meant immigration enforcement officers “can continue carrying out roving patrols in California without judicial micromanagement.”

Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, part of the legal team representing the challengers, said in a statement that the order “puts people at grave risk” and that the organization will “fight on in this case and others for our fundamental right to go about our lives without being targeted by government agents based on racial profiling.”

“For anyone perceived as Latino by an ICE agent, this means living in a fearful ‘papers please’ regime, with risks of violent ICE arrests and detention,” Wang said. “The Supreme Court’s order is outrageous because it includes no reasoning itself but puts on hold the well-reasoned opinions of the lower federal courts.”

The Supreme Court has largely supported President Donald Trump’s far-reaching immigration agenda, including what he has called the “single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.” Critics say the push is sweeping up US citizens, including two plaintiffs in the case who say they were forcibly detained by agents in separate incidents in June.

US District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong’s July 11 order was designed to end the indiscriminate targeting of migrants at places where they tend to work or look for day labor, including car washes and Home Depot parking lots.

The judge pointed to a “mountain of evidence” that agents were violating the Constitution, including the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. The order, which also applied to the US Border Patrol, came in a lawsuit by Southern California residents, workers and advocacy groups.

It’s not clear how effective Frimpong’s order was. Days after a federal appeals court backed the district judge, agents arrested more than a dozen people at a Los Angeles Home Depot.

Reasonable Suspicion

--------

Watch Bloomberg Radio LIVE on YouTube

Weekdays 7am-6pm ET

Follow us on X

Subscribe to our Podcasts:

Bloomberg Daybreak

Bloomberg Surveillance

Bloomberg Intelligence

Balance of Power

Bloomberg Businessweek

Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app:

Apple CarPlay

Android Auto

Visit our YouTube channels:

Bloomberg Podcasts

Bloomberg Television

Bloomberg Originals