The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to continue broad immigration raids in the Los Angeles area, temporarily halting a lower court order that had restricted so-called "roving" operations while an appeals court reviews the case.
The high court's order blocks a temporary restraining order issued last month by a federal judge in Los Angeles that barred Immigration and Customs Enforcement from basing stops and arrests on four specified factors: race or ethnicity, particular public locations such as bus stops, the type of work an individual performs and whether a person speaks Spanish. The stay permits ICE to carry out enforcement actions under the challenged criteria during the appeals process.
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued a brief separate opinion explaining the court's action. He wrote that "immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of U.S. immigration enforcement for decades, across several presidential administrations," and that the interest of people unlawfully in the country in avoiding questioning by law enforcement "is ultimately an interest in evading the law. That is not an especially weighty legal interest."
The court's three liberal justices issued a sharp dissent from the order. The lower-court judge, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, had imposed the temporary restraining order, concluding that the challenged raid practices could unlawfully target individuals on the basis of protected characteristics or ordinary public activity.
Federal officials and immigration advocates have long sparred over the scope and methods of enforcement. Critics have described the operations at issue as "roving" raids, arguing they can lead to sweeping stops of people based on broad characteristics rather than individualized suspicion. The Justice Department and ICE have defended the practices as lawful and necessary tools for identifying and removing people who are in the country unlawfully, saying they rely on lawful standards such as reasonable suspicion and probable cause.
The Supreme Court's order is a temporary procedural move that preserves the government's ability to carry out the enforcement actions while the case moves through the appeals process. It does not resolve the underlying statutory or constitutional claims at issue, which will be considered by the federal appeals court assigned to the case.
Legal observers said the order underscores the high court's willingness, in some circumstances, to allow executive-branch enforcement to proceed while litigation unfolds. The case will hinge on how courts balance longstanding immigration enforcement practices against constitutional protections and federal civil-rights laws alleged to have been violated by the challenged directives.
For now, ICE is permitted to continue the operations that prompted the lower-court restraining order. The appeals court's consideration will determine whether the temporary stay remains in place, is narrowed, or is reversed, and whether the underlying prohibitions set by the district court will be reinstated pending final disposition. The litigation could proceed through further appeals up to the Supreme Court, where a decisive ruling would address the broader legal and constitutional questions the dispute raises.