The United States Court of appeals has upheld a decision that temporarily halts federal agents from making immigration-related arrests in the Los Angeles area without probable cause.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s finding that the raids appeared to exclusively rely on a person’s race and other factors, like speaking Spanish.
The panel’s decision merely allows a temporary restraining order that had been imposed by the lower court to remain in place. It curtails, for now, the far-reaching operations that began in June as the case proceeds through the courts.
Judge Maame E. Frimpong of Federal District Court in Los Angeles has scheduled a hearing in late September as she weighs a longer-lasting order known as a preliminary injunction.
In their ruling on Friday night, the appellate judges wrote that the plaintiffs “are likely to succeed” in showing that federal agents made arrests based on how people looked, how they spoke and where they lived or worked.
Civil-rights groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and Public Counsel filed suit on July 2 accusing the Trump administration of unconstitutional sweeps since early June. Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested.
American citizens and immigrants who are legally in the United States have been caught in the dragnet, which fueled protests in Los Angeles and across the country.
President Trump had said that other Democratic-led cities would also be targeted, suggesting that the aggressive enforcement tactics deployed in Los Angeles might be replicated elsewhere.
In their 61-page ruling, the appellate judges, all of whom were appointed by Democratic presidents, said it was likely that the arrests were made without “reasonable suspicion.”
The judges added that because the arrests were “part of a pattern of officially sanctioned behavior,” they were “likely to recur” without court intervention.
Mohammad Tajsar, an attorney with the A.C.L.U. representing the plaintiffs, said the decision was “further confirmation that this administration’s paramilitary invasion of Los Angeles violated the Constitution and caused irreparable injury across the region.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, who has repeatedly called on the White House to end the aggressive enforcement actions, called the ruling “a victory for the rule of law and for the city of Los Angeles” and called on residents to “stand together against this administration’s efforts to break up families who contribute every single day to the life, the culture and the economy of our great city.”
The City and County of Los Angeles and seven other municipalities joined the lawsuit after heavily armed federal agents, escorted by National Guard troops, marched through MacArthur Park, in the heart of a bustling Latino enclave near downtown Los Angeles, on July 7 in a show of force.
The government now has two options. It can ask all the active Ninth Circuit judges to reconsider the panel’s Friday night decision, or it could ask the Supreme Court to issue a stay of Judge Frimpong’s order.
