U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of President Biden, said in July said she found a sufficient amount of evidence that agents were using race, language, a person’s vocation or the location they are at, such as a car wash, Home Depot, swap meet or row of street vendors, to form “reasonable suspicion” — the legal standard needed to detain someone. Frimpong said the reliance on those factors, either alone or in combination does not meet the requirements of the 4th Amendment.
“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,” she said.
Frimpong ordered federal agents not to use those factors to establish reasonable suspicion to detain people. And that all those in custody at a downtown detention facility known as B-18 must be given 24-hour access to lawyers and a confidential phone line.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel, other groups and private attorneys filed the lawsuit on behalf of several immigrant rights groups, three immigrants picked up at a bus stop and two U.S. citizens, one of whom was held despite showing agents his identification.
The plaintiffs argued in their complaint that immigration agents cornered brown-skinned people in Home Depot parking lots, at carwashes and at bus stops across Southern California in a show of force without establishing reasonable suspicion that they had violated immigration laws. They allege agents didn’t identify themselves, as required under federal law, and made unlawful warrantless arrests.