Immigration agents can resume patrols in L.A. under Supreme Court ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court — on a 6–3 vote — lifted a temporary restraining order in the President Donald Trump administration’s favor, allowing federal immigration officials to resume “roving patrols” in L.A. and Southern California that allow stops based on appearance, language or occupation, pending the final outcome of litigation.

The ruling, issued via the court’s emergency or “shadow docket,” permits agents to briefly detain and question individuals suspected of being in the U.S. unlawfully. Enforcement may be based on a “totality of the circumstances” standard for reasonable suspicion, which can include factors such as location, language, job type, and even ethnicity—so long as ethnicity is not the sole basis.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in a rare written concurrence, defended the decision, explaining, “here, those circumstances include: that there is an extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the L.A. 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 L.A. area come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English.”

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by her two liberal colleagues, condemned the ruling as a misuse of the emergency docket and warned of its potential to sanction racial profiling.

“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,” she wrote. 

Local leaders responded with alarm. California Gov. Gavin Newsom denounced the court’s “Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court majority just became the Grand Marshal for a parade of racial terror in Los Angeles. This isn’t about enforcing immigration laws — it’s about targeting Latinos and anyone who doesn’t look or sound like Stephen Miller’s idea of an American, including U.S. citizens and children, to deliberately harm California’s families and small businesses.”

Civil rights and immigrant rights groups—including the ACLU and United Farm Workers — have argued the prior court injunction arose from a “mountain of evidence” showing ICE conducted stops without reasonable suspicion, relying instead solely on traits like race, language, and occupation.

The legal battle continues. The Ninth Circuit had previously upheld the district court’s restraining order, and a hearing on a request for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for later this month.

Also see: Attorney says detained Korean Hyundai workers had special skills for short-term jobs