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In a win for Trump, Supreme Court lifts restrictions on immigration stops in LA

A lower court said federal agents need a reasonable suspicion that someone is in the country illegally and can't rely on factors such as ethnicity.

Blake Fagen/AFP/Getty Images/File

Blake Fagen/AFP/Getty Images/File

WASHINGTON – A divided Supreme Court on Sept. 8 said the Trump administration can resume for now the indiscriminate immigration-related stops in Los Angeles that sparked protests and charges of racial profiling.

Over the objections of the three liberal justices, the court blocked a judge’s ruling that federal agents need a reasonable suspicion that the person they’re questioning is in the country illegally.

U.S. District Judge Maame Frimpong of the Central District of California said the government can’t rely solely on the person’s ethnicity, what language they speak, whether they’re at a particular location, such as a pickup site for day laborers, or what type of work they do

Frimpong issued that temporary order in July in response to a class action lawsuit filed by a group of Latinos, including U.S. citizens, caught up in the 2025 ICE raids in Southern California.

More: Judge orders Trump administration to stop racial profiling in California immigration raids The administration questioned the legal right of the challengers to sue, and said the judge improperly elevated the Fourth Amendment’s “low bar” for reasonable suspicion for searches and seizures. That means the government isn’t doing anything wrong, the Justice Department said.

In a region where a significant share of residents may be undocumented, the Justice Department told the Supreme Court, “reasonable suspicion to stop suspected illegal aliens will necessarily encompass a reasonable broad profile.”

The government estimated that 10% of the population in parts of Southern and Central California is undocumented, which is why the Los Angeles area is a top enforcement priority.

The Trump administration ramped up immigration raids across California starting in June, widening its focus from those with criminal records to a broader sweep for anyone in the country without authorization.

 

Protesters confront armed federal immigration agents in Camarillo, California, on July 14, 2025.
Protesters confront armed federal immigration agents in Camarillo, California, on July 14, 2025." data-c-credit="Juan Carlo/The Star/USA TODAY Network Via Imagn Images

More: Can the president deploy soldiers on American streets? California court set to decide

The crackdown sparked protests, which Trump dispatched National Guard troops and Marines to quell.

Lawyers for the challengers said numerous U.S. citizens and others who are in the country legally have been harmed – including some who suffered serious physical injuries – and people are afraid to leave their homes.

“The government’s extraordinary claim that it can get very close to justifying a seizure of any Latino person in the Central District because of the asserted number of Latino people there who are not legally present is anathema to the Constitution,” they told the Supreme Court. “And, more generally, the Court has made clear that reasonable suspicion cannot arise from facts that would describe broad swaths of the law-abiding population.”

In her dissent for the court’s three liberals, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority’s decision “is yet an­other grave misuse of our emergency docket.”

“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."

Author: Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY

Source: USA Today

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