The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily allowed sweeping immigration raids in Los Angeles to continue, lifting a federal judge’s order that had barred agents from making stops without “reasonable suspicion.” The 6-3 conservative-majority ruling means Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents may resume enforcement tactics while a legal challenge to the raids works its way through the courts.
In the majority opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the lower court’s restraining order went too far in restricting how ICE agents could carry out stops or question suspected unlawful migrants. “To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion,” he wrote. “However, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors.” The court said the administration’s enforcement actions have a good chance of being found constitutional in the federal courts.
The decision reverses parts of a July ruling by U.S. District Judge Maame E. Frimpong in Los Angeles, who had found a “mountain of evidence” indicating that the raids were violating constitutional protections. Judge Frimpong’s order prohibited immigration enforcement from relying solely on factors such as “apparent race or ethnicity,” speaking Spanish, a person’s presence at particular locations — including bus stops, agricultural sites or car washes — or the type of work an individual does.
Legal advocacy groups representing migrants had argued that ICE agents were conducting “roving patrols” that indiscriminately stopped people and denied access to lawyers. Lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security countered that officers were targeting individuals based on immigration status rather than race, skin color or ethnicity, and that Judge Frimpong’s order unduly hamstrung enforcement operations.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labour.” She warned that the majority’s ruling “needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.”
The raids, which began in June, included stops and arrests at workplaces such as Home Depot and other sites and were met with protests and civil unrest in Los Angeles. In response to the unrest, the Trump administration deployed nearly 2,000 National Guard troops and about 700 Marines to the region without state authorization; a federal judge has since ruled that deployment illegal. The White House criticized that ruling, saying “a rogue judge is trying to usurp” the president’s authority “to protect American cities from violence and destruction.”
The high court’s action allows the administration to continue its enforcement strategy as it seeks to expand operations to other jurisdictions. The ruling comes amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to ramp up deportations and to use federal law enforcement and National Guard forces in other cities, including Washington and potentially Chicago.
The case will return to lower courts for further consideration of constitutional claims, including Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. For now, federal immigration agents in Los Angeles may resume practices that the district court had temporarily curtailed, and the litigation over the legality and scope of those tactics is expected to continue through the federal judiciary.