There have been numerous legal challenges to President Trump’s immigration sweeps across California that have led to at least 3,000 arrests.
But one lawsuit has the potential to dramatically alter the policy.
The ruling
A coalition of civil rights groups and private attorneys sued the federal government, challenging the cases of three immigrants and two U.S. citizens swept up in chaotic arrests that have sparked widespread protests since early June.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of President Biden, temporarily blocked federal agents in the Southland from using racial profiling to carry out immigration arrests after she found sufficient evidence that agents were using race, a person’s job or their location, and their language to form “reasonable suspicion” — the legal standard needed to detain an individual.
Frimpong ruled that using race, ethnicity, language, accent, location or employment as a pretext for immigration enforcement is forbidden by the 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.
The order covers Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
The judge also ordered that all those in custody at a downtown detention facility known as B-18 must be given 24-hour access to lawyers and a confidential phone line.
On Monday, the administration asked a federal appeals court to stay the judge’s order blocking the roving patrols, allowing it to resume raids across the seven California counties.
“It is untenable for a district judge to single-handedly ‘restructure the operations’ of federal immigration enforcement,” the appeal argued. “This judicial takeover cannot be allowed to stand.”
What experts are saying
Legal experts say it’s hard to say just how successful the federal government will be in getting a stay on the temporary order, given the current political climate.
“This is different from a lot of the other kinds of Trump litigation because the law is so clear in the fact finding by the district court,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. “So if you follow basic legal principles, this is a very weak case for the government on appeal, but it’s so hard to predict what will happen because everything is so ideological.”
In the past, legal scholars say, it would be extremely uncommon for an appeals court to weigh in on such an order. But recent events suggest it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
Courts have backed Trump’s immigration policies in other cases.
- In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing the federal government to deport convicted criminals to “third countries” even if they lack a prior connection to those countries.
- That same month, it also ruled 6 to 3 to limit the ability of federal district judges to issue nationwide orders blocking the president’s policies, which was frequently a check on executive power.
- In June, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to leave troops in Los Angeles in the hands of the Trump administration while California’s objections are litigated in federal court, finding the president had broad — though not “unreviewable” — authority to deploy the military in American cities. California had sued against the deployment.
It’s not an easy case for the government, said Ahilan Arulanantham, professor of practice and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law.
“I think one thing which makes this case maybe a little bit harder for the government than some of the other shadow docket cases is it really does affect citizens in an important way,” he said. “Obviously the immigration agent doesn’t know in advance when they come up to somebody whether they’re a citizen or a noncitizen or if they’re lawfully present or not.”
What is next?
The Frimpong ruling is now on appeal.
The plaintiffs argued in their complaint that immigration agents cornered brown-skinned people in Home Depot parking lots, at car washes and at bus stops across Southern California in a show of force without establishing reasonable suspicion that they had violated immigration laws. They allege agents didn’t identify themselves, as required under federal law, and made unlawful arrests without warrants.
Government lawyers argued in their motion that “ethnicity can be a factor supporting reasonable suspicion in appropriate circumstances — for instance, if agents are acting on a tip that identifies that ethnicity — even if it would not be relevant in other circumstances,” lawyers stated in their motion.
Attorneys said in the motion that speaking Spanish, being at a particular location or one’s job “can contribute to reasonable suspicion in at least some circumstances.”
Government lawyers said Frimpong’s injunction was a first step to placing immigration enforcement under judicial monitorship and was “indefensible on every level.” They asked the higher court to pause the order while the appeal is heard.
The government is also appealing another injunction imposed by a federal judge in the Eastern District of California after Border Patrol agents stopped and arrested dozens of farmworkers and laborers — including a U.S. citizen — during a days-long operation in the Central Valley in January.
That case is likely to be heard later this year.
