Supreme Court Greenlights Racially Biased ICE Patrols in Los Angeles, Sparking Outrage

The Supreme Court’s decision to greenlight roving immigration patrols in Los Angeles is being called a direct assault on civil liberties and communities of color. On Monday, the Court blocked a ruling by U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong that had prohibited immigration agents from stopping people based solely on race, language, or occupation. Instead, the Court sided with the Trump administration, allowing agents to resume sweeping patrols that target Latino workers and immigrant neighborhoods.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the Court’s two other liberals, issued a blistering dissent. “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. “Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.” Sotomayor stressed that the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unlawful searches and seizures should apply to everyone, warning, “After today, that may no longer be true.”

Civil rights groups echoed her concerns. Mohammad Tajsar of the ACLU called the ruling “a devastating setback for our plaintiffs and communities who, for months, have been subjected to immigration stops because of the color of their skin, occupation, or the language they speak.” The lawsuit, brought by the United Farm Workers and Los Angeles Worker Center Network, detailed how ICE sweeps were terrorizing local residents, often without reasonable suspicion.

The evidence included U.S. citizens being stopped and harassed. Jorge Hernandez Viramontes, a car wash worker, said ICE visited his workplace three times and detained him in June despite his citizenship. Another plaintiff, Jason Brian Gavidia, was stopped in Los Angeles County. 

Lawyers noted that as a result of ICE’s tactics, “U.S. citizens and others who are lawfully present in this country have been subjected to significant intrusions on their liberty.”

Judge Frimpong had previously ruled that ICE’s conduct violated both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, writing, “What the federal government would have this court believe — in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case — is that none of this is actually happening.”

From the anti-ICE perspective, this Supreme Court ruling validates racial profiling and strips away basic constitutional protections, leaving immigrant communities — and even U.S. citizens — vulnerable to abuse and harassment.

Link: NBCNews