The future of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration in Los Angeles was uncertain Saturday after a federal appeals court panel denied the administration’s bid to stay a temporary restraining order halting the federal government’s roving immigration patrols.
Federal attorneys had argued that U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong was incorrect in her July 14 ruling that the patrols were illegally conducted without reasonable suspicion. U.S. Department of Justice Attorney Jacob Roth insisted that the immigration stops — which began June 6 in the Los Angeles area but were largely halted by Frimpong’s order — were perfectly legal, carefully targeted and conducted with probable cause to make arrests.
“The officers are instructed to find reasonable suspicion before an arrest,” Roth told the panel, adding that Frimpong’s restraining order “is fundamentally flawed on multiple levels.”
However, the three-member 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel, all Democratic appointees, appeared skeptical during Monday’s oral arguments, and that was borne out by Friday’s ruling.
“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 panel wrote.
An eventual appeal to the Supreme Court is expected, where six of the nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents.
President Trump had not personally commented on the ruling as of Saturday morning, but White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson took issue with the ruling.
“No federal judge has the authority to dictate immigration policy — that authority rests with Congress and the president,” Jackson said in a statement to City News Service. “Enforcement operations require careful planning and execution; skills far beyond the purview or jurisdiction of any judge. The Trump administration looks forward to continuing to implement its immigration policies lawfully.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether the raids would continue.
“This is a victory for Los Angeles, and this is a victory because the people of Los Angeles stood together,” Mayor Karen Bass told reporters Friday night outside Getty House, her official residence.
“I think the administration might have believed that this was going to divide our city, that our city was going to go at each other in division, but we did not. We stood strong, and I am very happy to say that us standing strong … gave the court the resolve to uphold this decision.”
The rulings stem from a lawsuit filed July 2 by Southland residents, workers and advocacy groups alleging that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is operating a program of “abducting and disappearing” community members using unlawful arrest tactics, then confining detainees in illegal conditions while denying access to attorneys.
The proposed class-action suit also claims that federal officials have unconstitutionally arrested and detained people in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration.
U.S. officials have denied the presence of a quota.
“Yesterday’s ruling by the Ninth Circuit is a critical victory for the rule of law and for communities across Los Angeles County,” Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Pro Tem Hilda Solis said Saturday. “It reaffirms what we have long known to be true: indiscriminate and warrantless immigration raids must end.
“The Trump administration’s enforcement actions, driven by an artificial quota and political motives rather than public safety, have caused lasting harm. Families have been torn apart. Children are afraid to go to school. Older adults are hesitant to seek medical care. Small businesses that form the backbone of our neighborhoods are struggling. These are not isolated incidents. They are the direct result of policies carried out by a president who believes he is above the law.”
“Reasonable minds can differ about what our federal immigration priorities ought to be but when employees feel unsafe, customers stay home, families are disrupted and uncertainty replaces stability, everyone suffers — regardless of immigration status,” according to a statement from CA For U.S., a coalition of more than 20 business, labor, faith and philanthropic organizations including SEIU United Service Workers West, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Latino Community Foundation.
“These immigration enforcement actions traumatize children and families, destabilize entire neighborhoods and undermine trust in democratic institutions,” the coalition stated. “They also create ripple effects that threaten key industries and employers across the state, from agriculture and construction to health care, hospitality and logistics.”
The opinion from Judges Marsha Berzon, Jennifer Sung and Ronald Gould declared, “There is no predicate action that the individual plaintiffs would need to take, other than simply going about their lives, to potentially be subject to the challenged stops.”
Trump administration officials have defended the raids, pointing to the president’s many statements during the 2024 campaign pledging to carry out mass deportations of those here illegally, and touting the alleged criminal records of some detainees.
Frimpong has scheduled a hearing in the case on Sept. 24.