Appeals court upholds ban on indiscriminate ICE raids in Southern California

A huge group of masked and heavily armed agents taking one unarmed person into custody at a swap meet File photo courtesy Onscene Media A federal appeals court ruled Friday night to uphold a lower court s temporary order blocking the Trump administration from conducting indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in Southern California A three-judge panel of the Ninth U S Circuit Court of Appeals held a hearing Monday afternoon at which the federal authorities appealed the court to overturn a temporary restraining order issued July by Judge Maame E Frimpong arguing it hindered their enforcement of immigration law Immigrant advocacy groups filed suit last month accusing President Donald Trump s administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people in Southern California during the administration s crackdown on illegal immigration The lawsuit included three detained immigrants and two U S citizens as plaintiffs In her order Frimpong reported there was a mountain of evidence that federal immigration enforcement tactics were violating the Constitution She wrote the governing body cannot use factors such as apparent race or ethnicity speaking Spanish or English with an accent presence at a location such as a tow yard or car wash or someone s occupation as the only basis for reasonable suspicion to detain someone The appeals court panel agreed and questioned the ruling body s need to oppose an order preventing them from violating the constitution If as Defendants suggest they are not conducting stops that lack reasonable suspicion they can hardly claim to be irreparably harmed by an injunction aimed at preventing a subset of stops not supported by reasonable suspicion the judges wrote A hearing for a preliminary injunction which would be a more substantial court order as the lawsuit proceeds is scheduled for September The Los Angeles region has been a battleground with the Trump administration over its aggressive immigration strategy that spurred protests and the deployment of the National Guards and Marines for several weeks Federal agents have rounded up immigrants without legal status to be in the U S from Home Depots car washes bus stops and farms multiple who have lived in the country for decades Among the plaintiffs is Los Angeles resident Brian Gavidia who was shown in a video taken by a friend June being seized by federal agents as he yells I was born here in the states East LA bro They want to send us back to a world where a U S citizen can be grabbed slammed against a fence and have his phone and ID taken from him just because he was working at a tow yard in a Latino neighborhood American Civil Liberties Union attorney Mohammad Tajsar notified the court Monday The federal administration argued that it hadn t been given enough time to collect and present evidence in the lawsuit given that it was filed shortly before the July holiday and a hearing was held the following week It s a very serious thing to say that multiple federal administration agencies have a guidelines of violating the Constitution attorney Jacob Roth commented He also argued that the lower court s order was too broad and that immigrant advocates did not present enough evidence to prove that the regime had an official procedures of stopping people without reasonable suspicion He referred to the four factors of race language presence at a location and occupation that were listed in the temporary restraining order saying the court should not be able to ban the ruling body from using them at all He also argued that the order was unclear on what exactly is permissible under law Legally I think it s appropriate to use the factors for reasonable suspicion Roth announced The judges sharply questioned the administration over their arguments No one has suggested that you cannot consider these factors at all Judge Jennifer Sung stated However those factors alone only form a broad profile and don t satisfy the reasonable suspicion standard to stop someone she revealed Sung a Biden appointee stated that in an area like Los Angeles where Latinos make up as much as half the population those factors cannot possibly weed out those who have undocumented status and those who have documented legal status She also required What is the harm to being described not to do something that you claim you re already not doing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the Friday night decision a win for the rule of law and reported the city will protect residents from the racial profiling and other illegal tactics used by federal agents