Orange County could soon see widespread immigration sweeps again after Supreme Court Justices removed a temporary restraining order on the practice.
It comes as the ACLU and a host of immigrant advocacy groups – on behalf of five Los Angeles residents – sue the federal government over the deportation efforts, alleging that federal agents are racially profiling people.
In July, a U.S. District Court Judge issued a temporary injunction against widespread raids based on race, ethnicity, language spoken and place of employment – later upheld by a panel of judges at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Monday, a majority of Supreme Court Justices blocked the temporary restraining order while the case continues playing out in lower court.
“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,” reads the ruling signed only by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh noted that the Los Angeles area has a high number of undocumented immigrants.
“The Government sometimes makes brief investigative stops to check the immigration status of those who gather in locations where people are hired for day jobs; who work or appear to work in jobs such as construction, landscaping, agriculture, or car washes that often do not require paperwork and are therefore attractive to illegal immigrants; and who do not speak much if any English,” he wrote.
He said the stops are pretty straightforward.
“If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go. If the individual is illegally in the United States, the officers may arrest the individual and initiate the process for removal,” Kavanaugh wrote.
The majority opinion signed by Kavanaugh said federal immigration agents are acting on a specific set of circumstances throughout Los Angeles and much of Southern California.
“Here, those circumstances include: that there is an extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area; that those individuals tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work; that those individuals often work in certain kinds of jobs, such as day labor, landscaping, agriculture, and construction, that do not require paperwork and are therefore especially attractive to illegal immigrants; and that many of those illegally in the Los Angeles area come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English.”
Dissenting Supreme Court Justices sharply disagreed.
“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. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent,” reads the dissent by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, signed on by Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Katanji Brown Jackson.
The dissent detailed how a Los Angeles car wash owner – a dual U.S. and Mexico citizen – was detained by ICE agents after his business was raided several times in a week.
Sotomayor also highlighted how federal agents were allegedly told to focus on Home Depots and car washes.
“The Fourth Amendment thus prohibits exactly what the Government is attempting to do here: seize individuals based solely on a set of facts that ‘describe[s] a very large category of presumably innocent’ people,” reads the dissenting opinion, adding that federal officials haven’t submitted evidence the raids are targeted.
“Rather, its declarations suggest that the Government generally targeted locations based on the ‘types of businesses’ that, in the agents’ generalized experiences, undocumented immigrants supposedly frequent,” reads the dissenting opinion.
Sotomayor also said the Fourth Amendment protects people from “free from arbitrary interference by law officers.”
“After today, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little.”
Locally, opposition to the ICE raids has been growing.
A handful of Orange County cities have voted to either join the lawsuit or file what’s known as amicus briefs – letters supporting the lawsuit.
[Read: Opposition to ICE Raids Grows in Orange County]
In an ACLU news release after Monday’s ruling, Pedro Vasquez Perdomo – a plaintiff in the case – criticized the Supreme Court ruling.
“When ICE grabbed me, they never showed a warrant or explained why. I was treated like I didn’t matter–locked up, cold, hungry, and without a lawyer. Now, the Supreme Court says that’s okay? That’s not justice. That’s racism with a badge.”
In a Monday social media statement on X, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem praised the ruling.
“SCOTUS’s stay is a win for the safety and security of the American people and the rule of law,” Noem wrote.
“Our brave @DHSGov law enforcement will continue our operations in LA to remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens that pose a danger to public safety.”