Judge blocks racial profiling by immigration officials in LA crackdown

By Erik Larson

 

A federal judge in Los Angeles issued a temporary order barring US immigration authorities from stopping people for questioning without cause, the latest fallout from the Trump administration’s controversial crackdown on migrants in California and across the US. 

A temporary restraining order sought by a group of Southern California residents, workers and advocacy groups was granted Friday by US District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, escalating another legal clash between immigrant rights groups and President Donald Trump’s administration.

 

The judge barred agents in the Los Angeles area from stopping and questioning individuals without reasonable suspicion that they’re in the US illegally. The order forbids the agents from basing their suspicion on race, ethnicity, speaking Spanish, speaking English with an accent, the type of the work they do or where they are located. 

 

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said “a district judge is undermining the will of the American people.”

 

“America’s brave men and women are removing murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles, rapists — truly the worst of the worst — from Golden State communities,” she said in an emailed statement. “Law and order will prevail.”

 

The groups argued that federal officials “must have an objective, particularized basis” to believe that a person is in the US illegally before they can stop them and require they answer questions. To do otherwise, they alleged, amounts to illegal racial profiling. They also asked the judge to order that anyone detained be provided access to lawyers — which she granted.

 

The order by Frimpong, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, is a rebuke to the administration’s raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in public spaces to make mass arrests. It comes as a wide swath of the most populous state’s Democratic elected officials, from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to Governor Gavin Newsom, have slammed President Donald Trump’s administration for what they describe as heavy-handed tactics. 

 

The disputed tactics include using National Guard troops to protect ICE agents during immigration sweeps and deploying US Marines in downtown Los Angeles to help quell protests, both of which triggered separate lawsuits. But the targeting of suspected migrants by masked and armed immigration agents has been a focal point of Democratic criticism.

 

“Armed to the hilt, masked, and driving unmarked cars, they have adopted a central strategy of grabbing people first and asking questions later,” the groups said in their request for a restraining order.

 

Trump has argued that his tactics are in line with the president’s constitutional authority to carry out immigration policy and that voters elected him to follow through on his vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Trump has frequently portrayed migrants as criminals who pose a threat to Americans, but court records show many are law-abiding noncitizens have been swept up across the country. 

 

The groups that sued in Los Angeles, the second-largest US metropolitan area and a focal point of Trump’s effort, argued in court filings that federal immigration agents are violating the Constitution by conducting stops “without reasonable suspicion” that the individuals were in the US illegally. The agents are trying to meet “an arbitrary quota for 3,000 daily arrests imposed by the White House,” the groups said. 

 

“But while defendants may believe that immigration enforcement can be a numbers game, the Fourth Amendment requires that seizures be reasonable,” they said in a filing.

 

The filings cite detailed examples of alleged wrongdoing by federal agents, including a man who says he was “grabbed” at a car wash and interrogated by agents who knew “nothing more at the time than that he had brown skin and was present at the car wash.” Another man, a plaintiff in the suit, was detained at a tow yard where he was working on his car.

 

“He told them he was American, but they violently persisted in their questioning, demanding that he tell him what hospital he was born in, and only let him go after he showed them his Real ID, for which they had not even asked,” according to the filing. 

 

The plaintiffs argue that “roving patrols” targeting day laborers, street vendors, farm workers and other were “expressly directed” by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who told high level officials at ICE to “just go out there and arrest” unauthorized noncitizens by rounding them up in public spaces like “Home Depot” and “7-Eleven” stores, according to court filings.  

 

The groups allege that similar racial profiling has been underway at raids in agricultural sites, bus stops, packing houses and churches.

 

Newsom praised Friday’s ruling, saying “justice prevailed,” while Bass said it affirms “the Constitution, American values and decency.”

 

“This is an important step toward restoring safety, security and defending the rights of all Angelenos,” she said in a statement.