A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to halt its indiscriminate immigration raids across California.
The order was made in response to a filing from immigrant advocacy groups accusing the administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people in Southern California—leading to incidents like Marines detaining a veteran of Angolan and Portuguese heritage who was on his way to the Department of Veterans Affairs—as the Trump administration ramps up its immigration crackdown with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids across the country.
The advocacy groups asked the judge to block the administration from using “unconstitutional tactics” in immigration raids, including detaining people on the basis of race and denying detainees access to legal counsel.
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong of the U.S. District Court for Central California, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, said there was a “mountain of evidence” to support the groups’ claims and issued two temporary orders: one that prohibits immigration agents from arresting people without reasonable suspicion they’re in the country illegally, and another that requires agents to allow detainees immediate access to legal counsel.
“The factors that defendants appear to rely on for reasonable suspicion seem no more indicative of illegal presence in the country than of legal presence—such as working at low-wage occupations such as car wash attendants and day laborers,” Frimpong wrote in her order late Friday. “That is insufficient and impermissible.”
The orders apply to Los Angeles County and six surrounding counties and are temporary as the case proceeds through the courts.
It comes as the Trump administration has ramped up its deportation push across the country in an effort to reach a goal of 3,000 immigration arrests per day. The goal was set by Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and the chief architect of the administration’s immigration policies, in May. ICE raids in Los Angeles sparked widespread demonstrations in early June, where Trump dispatched 4,000 members of the National Guard and 700 Marines over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Earlier on Friday, border czar Tom Homan appeared on Fox News to discuss the case ahead of the ruling. Speaking to Griff Jenkins on Fox & Friends, Homan said, “People need to understand ICE officers and Border Patrol don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them.”
”They just need to tally the circumstances ... based on the location, the occupation, their physical appearance, their actions," Homan added. “Agents are trained, what they need to detain someone temporarily and question them is not probable cause; it’s reasonable suspicion.”
Legal experts were quick to correct Homan as soon as the video was posted to Twitter, with Congressman Daniel Goldman, a Democrat from New York and a lawyer who led the first impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, posting, “This is patently false.”
”DHS has [the] authority to question and search people coming into the country at points of entry. But ICE may not detain and question anyone without reasonable suspicion—and certainly not based on their physical appearance alone,” he wrote. ”This lawlessness must stop.”
While Homan’s comments appear to confirm what immigration advocacy groups have argued is true and that ICE is targeting people based on race, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement to the Associated Press that “any claims that individuals have been ‘targeted’ by law enforcement because of their skin color are disgusting and categorically FALSE.”
Newsom, meanwhile, heralded the ruling.
“Justice prevailed today,” he wrote on X Friday night. “California stands with the law and the Constitution—and I call on the Trump administration to do the same."
In a separate post, the governor’s office took aim at White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies.
“Instead of targeting the most dangerous people, federal officials have been arbitrarily detaining Americans and hardworking people, ripping families apart, and disappearing people into cruel detention to meet outrageous arrest quotas without regard to due process and constitutional rights that protect all of us from cruelty and injustice,” the office wrote on X Friday.
Immigrant communities across California have been targeted by ICE, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and other federal agencies since early June.
Advocates have argued that these raids have targeted anyone who ”looks Hispanic” and have largely taken place at locations associated with immigrant workers, like Home Depot. An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union said that his client, a U.S. citizen who was detained by immigration agents, was “physically assaulted ... for no other reason than he was Latino and working at a tow yard in a predominantly Latin American neighborhood.”
