The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday granted the government’s request to stay a federal court order that had restricted immigration agents from making certain detentive stops in the Los Angeles region, allowing enforcement to continue while the case proceeds on appeal, according to the court’s order.
The unsigned order pauses a July 11 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and will remain in place through the Ninth Circuit appeal and any petition for Supreme Court review. If review is denied, the stay ends automatically; if review is granted, the stay ends when the Court issues its judgment, the order stated.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately to explain his vote to grant the stay. He said the government showed a “fair prospect” of ultimately prevailing and a likelihood of irreparable harm without relief, pointing to the Court’s stay standards in Nken v. Holder and related cases. He also highlighted two grounds for possible reversal: that the plaintiffs likely lack standing under Los Angeles v. Lyons, and that the district court’s limits conflict with precedents on brief immigration questioning based on reasonable suspicion.
At issue is a district court order that barred agents from relying solely—whether alone or in combination—on four factors to justify a stop: a person’s apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent, presence at particular locations such as bus stops, car washes or day-labor pickup sites, and the type of work the person appears to do. The Central District of California covers Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
Kavanaugh said the “totality of the circumstances” can permit brief stops for questioning about immigration status, adding that “apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion,” though it can be a “relevant factor” along with others. He concluded the balance of harms favors the government during the appeal.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented. She described the challenged operations as part of “Operation At Large,” saying agents made nearly 2,800 immigration-related arrests over about a month in greater Los Angeles and often seized people on sight at car washes, tow yards, Home Depot locations, bus stops, farms, parks and other sites. “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,” she wrote.
The dissent said the district court found “ample evidence” that seizures had occurred based only on the four factors and that forward-looking relief was warranted. It also noted the Ninth Circuit largely declined to stay the district court’s order, except for striking the phrase “except as permitted by law” as impermissibly vague.
Sotomayor argued that seizing individuals based on the four factors “describe[s] a very large category of presumably innocent people” and does not satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of individualized, articulable suspicion. She criticized the majority’s use of the emergency docket and said the equities favored the plaintiffs.
Next in the case, the district court is scheduled to hear motions on a preliminary injunction and class certification on Sept. 24, while the Ninth Circuit appeal continues, according to the filings cited in the dissent. The Supreme Court’s stay keeps the challenged enforcement tactics in place unless and until a lower court orders otherwise or the justices take up the case on the merits.
The case is No. 25A169, Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo: See the ruling: https://www.aclusocal.org/sites/default/files/25a169.pdf
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