September 8, 2025
The Supreme Court just handed President Trump a big victory in his immigration crackdown in Los Angeles. But this ruling does inform how ICE will continue to conduct crack downs across the country.
At least for now – the Supreme Court says — ICE agents can continue with their roving patrols and most importantly will still have a lot of leeway when it comes to who they are able to stop question and detain.
Todays’ order by the justices “stays” –or pauses– a temporary restraining order issued by a lower federal court judge who found the trump administration was likely violating the 4th and 5th amendments of the United States constitution because of ice’s sometimes aggressive raids. Obviously the constitution of the United States says law enforcement can’t just randomly stop you for no reason. And that lower court judge ruled – if federal immigration officers want to legally stop, question or detain people they could not use any of the following four factors or any combination of those factors to justify the stop. Ice agents could not use — one– presence at particular locations like bus stops, car washes, day laborer pickup sites, agricultural sites, and the like to justify a stop; –two– the type of work one does; –three– speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent; or four apparent race or ethnicity. The trump administration appealed to the supreme court saying – if ICE agents can’t use those factors it would “substantially hamper” their efforts to enforce immigrations laws in the Los Angeles area.
Well today the conservative majority of the Supreme Court agreed. Justice Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion saying that all the government needs to justify a stop is “reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the United States.” And all federal agents need to have come to a reasonable suspicion is the “totality of the circumstances.” Now – the justices said clearly that ethnicity alone does not equal reasonable suspicion but ethnicity can be a “relevant factor” in that totality of circumstances. What’s interesting here is – Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion he says he believes the totality of the circumstances in Los Angeles are already present – he points to things like “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.”
Importantly — Kavanaugh noted reasonable suspicion *only* allows federal law enforcement to “briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status.” If the person is a US citizen or otherwise lawfully in the US that individual must be free to go after only a “brief” encounter.
All three of the liberal justices joined in a scathing dissent saying that the US government provided no evidence that there is an “extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area.” The dissent also points out that the government’s immigration actions are way more aggressive than they are saying in court and the three liberal justices basically said today’s ruling will just give the trump administration a pass to legally racially profile. The fourth amendment protects every individual’s constitutional right to be “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.”
This case will now continue in the 9th circuit court of appeals.
Read the ruling here.
