The Supreme Court on Monday backed President Donald Trump’s push to allow immigration enforcement officials to continue what critics describe as “roving patrols” in Southern California that lower courts said likely violated the Fourth Amendment.
The court did not offer an explanation for its decision, which came over a sharp dissent from the three liberal justices.
At issue were a series of incidents in which masked and heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled aside people who identify as Latino – including some US citizens – around Los Angeles to interrogate them about their immigration status. Lower courts found that ICE likely had not established the “reasonable suspicion” required to justify those stops.
The decision deals with seven counties in Southern California, but it has landed during a broader crackdown on immigration by the Trump administration – and officials are likely to read it as a tacit approval of similar practices elsewhere.
“This is a win for the safety of Californians and the rule of law,” said Tricia McLaughlin, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson. “DHS law enforcement will not be slowed down and will continue to arrest and remove the murderers, rapists, gang members, and other criminal illegal aliens.”
A US District Court in July ordered the Department of Homeland Security to discontinue the practice if the stops were based largely on a person’s apparent ethnicity, language or their presence at a particular location, such as a farm or bus stop. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld that decision, which applied only to seven California counties.
But the Supreme Court disagreed with that approach. Though the court did not provide any analysis explaining its decision, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a member of the conservative wing who sided with Trump, wrote in a concurrence that the factors the agents were considering “taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States.”
“To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors,” Kavanaugh wrote.
“Importantly,” Kavanaugh added, “reasonable suspicion means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status.”
‘Freedoms are lost,’ Sotomayor warns
The order drew a fiery dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.
“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,” Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”
Sotomayor wrote in her dissent that the “on-the-ground reality” of immigration arrests cuts against the federal government’s fears that a court ruling could chill authorities’ ability to detain and deport undocumented migrants.
“The evidence in this case, however, reveals that the government is likely to continue relying solely on those four factors because that is what agents are currently authorized and instructed to do,” Sotomayor wrote.
Since a district court issued a ruling temporarily barring interrogations and arrests based only on a person’s apparent ethnicity, language or their presence at a particular location, members of the Trump administration have made clear they intend to proceed with their agenda as planned, the justice said.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “has called the District Judge an ‘idiot’ and vowed that ‘none of [the government’s] operations are going to change,’” Sotomayor wrote. “The CBP Chief Patrol Agent in the Central District has stated that his division will ‘turn and burn’ and ‘go even harder now,’ and has posted videos on social media touting his agents’ continued efforts ‘[c]hasing, cuffing, [and] deporting’ people at car washes.”
Referring to Kavanaugh’s concurrence, Sotomayor said that ICE agents aren’t just conducting brief or routine traffic stops. They are seizing both undocumented immigrants and US citizens “using firearms, physical violence, and warehouse detentions.”
The case was the latest of nearly two dozen emergency appeals the administration has filed at the Supreme Court since Trump began his second term in January. Many of those have dealt with Trump’s immigration policies.
US District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, in her earlier ruling siding against Trump in the case, said the administration was attempting to convince the court “in the face of a mountain of evidence” that none of the plaintiffs’ claims were true.
Frimpong, appointed by President Joe Biden, said in her ruling that the court needed to decide whether the plaintiffs could prove the Trump administration “is indeed conducting roving patrols without reasonable suspicion and denying access to lawyers.”
The American Civil Liberties Union also condemned the ruling.
“Today’s Supreme Court order puts people at grave risk, allowing federal agents in Southern California to target individuals because of their race, how they speak, the jobs they work, or just being at a bus stop or the car wash when ICE agents decide to raid a place,” said Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the ACLU, which was part of the legal team challenging the stops.
“For anyone perceived as Latino by an ICE agent,” she added, “this means living in a fearful ‘papers please’ regime, with risks of violent ICE arrests and detention.”
Kavanaugh wades into immigration
Kavanaugh used his 10-page concurrence to launch into a broader discussion about the debate around illegal immigration.
“To be sure, I recognize and fully appreciate that many (not all, but many) illegal immigrants come to the United States to escape poverty and the lack of freedom and opportunities in their home countries,” he wrote.
“But the fact remains that, under the laws passed by Congress and the president, they are acting illegally by remaining in the United States – at least unless Congress and the president choose some other legislative approach to legalize some or all of those individuals now illegally present in the country,” he added.
Sotomayor leaned into a growing criticism around how the Supreme Court has handled high-profile emergency cases dealing with Trump: That it has offered no explanation. The court itself offered only a single paragraph of boilerplate language in siding with Trump.
The sometimes-terse orders have been a topic of discussion for several justices who have appeared at events over the summer. Kagan said earlier this year that she thought the court could often provide further explanation in its emergency decisions. But Kavanaugh and others have noted that the court is sometimes hesitant to signal which way it’s leaning in a case.
“The court’s order is troubling for another reason: It is entirely unexplained,” Sotomayor wrote. “In the last eight months, this court’s appetite to circumvent the ordinary appellate process and weigh in on important issues has grown exponentially.”
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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