Another Gift to Trump: Supreme Court Lifts Lower Court Ban on 'Blatant Racial Profiling' by ICE Agents

The US Supreme Court on Monday gave its approval for federal immigration agents to stop and detain anyone in the Los Angeles area based on factors including "the type of work one does," a person's use of Spanish or accented English, or their "apparent race or ethnicity"—allowing what critics called "blatant racial profiling" to be used to carry out President Donald Trump's mass detention and deportation plan.

The court's three liberal justices dissented, but the right-wing majority sided with the Department of Homeland Security, whose agents in recent months have carried out sweeping raids across the Los Angeles area, including in incidents that have been caught on video and appear to be armed roundups of large randomized groups of Latino people—not operations targeted at arresting violent criminals, as the Trump administration has previously suggested.

The court did not provide an explanation of its reasoning, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a separate opinion expressing agreement with the ruling, saying the court was simply allowing immigration agents to use "commonsense" criteria for stopping and detaining people, including their English proficiency and the type of work they do.

In their dissenting opinion, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote, "We should not have to live in a country where then government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job."

"Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent," wrote Sotomayor.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council (AIC) said the ruling by the right-wing majority has troubling implications.

"Because a sizeable portion of Los Angeles's low-income Latino community is undocumented," he said, the court believes "it is inherently acceptable for [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to stop and question any Latino working a low-wage job that is seen seeking Spanish."

Civil rights groups joined several individuals in filing a lawsuit against the administration earlier this year, arguing that thousands of people in Los Angeles have been wrongly arrested in unconstitutional, "indiscriminate immigration operations."

"Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force," the plaintiffs argued, "and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents have been violating the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment, they said, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

In July, Judge Maame E. Frimpong in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, ordered agents not to stop or arrest people in the Los Angeles area based on factors including race and ethnicity, language spoken, or their involvement in particular kinds of work including at day-laborer or farming sites.

The Trump administration later appealed to the Supreme Court, saying the lower court's order had unlawfully interfered with ICE operations and claiming agents use discretion to ensure they don't wrongfully include people in immigration sweeps.

The plaintiffs argued that the administration's "roving patrols have routinely stopped US citizens... without an individualized assessment of reasonable suspicion," including plaintiff Jason Brian Gavidia, who was approached by masked agents outside a tow yard and told them he was an American as they slammed him against a metal fence and took his phone and ID, demanding to know what hospital he'd been born at.

The Los Angeles Times reported in July that the majority of people arrested by ICE and other immigration agents have no criminal record.

The case the Supreme Court ruled on Monday is still pending before a federal appeals court, which could again restrict the administration's ability to racially profile residents.

But for now, AIC policy director Nayna Gupta said the Supreme Court ruling "greenlights the worst ICE and [Customs and Border Protection] practices we are seeing against Latino communities around the country."

"We can expect this racist enforcement to expand rapidly," said Gupta.

The ACLU of Southern California called the Supreme Court ruling "a devastating setback for communities" across the Los Angeles area.

A bipartisan group of the executive committee of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials called the decision "a troubling setback for civil rights and constitutional protections."

"The Constitution does not allow Americans to be stopped simply for speaking Spanish, waiting for work, or looking Latino. Reasonable suspicion must be based on evidence, not ethnicity," said the officials. "By siding with the administration, the court has opened the door to profiling practices that will expose millions of Latinos to harassment, wrongful detention, and fear in their daily lives. Whether at bus stops, workplaces, or public spaces, Latino communities will face the risk of being treated as suspects simply because of who they are or what they look like."