WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration Monday to continue sweeping immigration raids in the Los Angeles area that target individuals based on broad criteria such as their occupation or whether they speak Spanish.
The justices halted a lower court ruling that restricted what critics have dubbed “roving” raids conducted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while the matter is considered by the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued a brief concurrence explaining the order, while the court’s three liberal justices issued a blistering dissent.
Federal agents with US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) stand outside an armored vehicle near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, California, on July 7, 2025. AFP via Getty Images“Immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of US immigration enforcement for decades, across several presidential administrations,” Kavanaugh wrote. “… “The interests of individuals who are illegally in the country in avoiding being stopped by law enforcement for questioning is ultimately an interest in evading the law. That is not an especially weighty legal interest.”
Last month, Los Angeles US District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from pursuing immigration raids premised on four factors: race and ethnicity, specific locations such as bus stops, type of work an individual performs and speaking Spanish.
Frimpong, appointed by former President Joe Biden, had previously ruled that the stops violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
Three individuals in the US illegally filed a lawsuit over their detention. They had been arrested at a donut shop before being released on bond, according to court documents.
Their lawsuit was later backed by two American citizens and four left-leaning organizations.
Another plaintiff claimed he was detained despite telling officers he was a US citizen.
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned the dissent, accusing the majority of compromising fundamental constitutional freedoms.
“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. “Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”
Sotomayor also swiped at the high court’s use of the emergency docket to weigh in on the appeal without providing analysis.
Serious disorder takes place in downtown Los Angeles, hundreds of law enforcement officers are deployed, as are National Guard. Toby Canham for NY Post“The court’s order is troubling for another reason: It is entirely unexplained,” Sotomayor added. “In the last eight months, this court’s appetite to circumvent the ordinary appellate process and weigh in on important issues has grown exponentially.”
Roughly 48% of Los Angeles County residents are Hispanic, according to data from the US Census.
Solicitor General John Sauer had argued in court documents that Frimpong’s temporary restraining order hampered a “basic law enforcement tool.”
“No agent can confidently enforce the law and engage in routine stops when the district court may later refuse to credit that the stop reflected additional, permissible factors and instead treat virtually any stop as contemptuous misconduct,” he argued.
The Trump administration had pleaded with the Ninth Circuit to pause Frimpong’s order, but a three-judge panel spurned that petition before the Supreme Court’s intervention.
