{"id":59229,"date":"2025-07-12T09:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T09:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/59229\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T09:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T09:28:08","slug":"judge-orders-halt-to-roving-la-immigration-raids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/59229\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge orders halt to ‘roving’ LA immigration raids"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Wendy Fry<\/a> and Sergio Olmos<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""Three\"
\n\t\t\t\tFederal agents descend on MacArthur Park in Los Angeles on July 7, 2025. Photo by J.W. Hendricks for CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Friday granted a temporary restraining order against the federal government\u2019s aggressive, month-long immigration sweep across Southern California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A coalition of civil rights, immigrant rights and local government agencies sought the order<\/a>, arguing the raids have violated constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures by conducting warrantless stops on people who simply appear to be Latino, and due process rights to access to counsel in immigration detention, where they say detainees are facing \u201cdungeon-like conditions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a 52-page order issued late Friday evening, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong wrote that the two questions before the court were if the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in proving that the government \u201cis conducting roving patrols without reasonable suspicion and denying access to lawyers?\u201d and \u201cwhat should be done about that?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ruling could have far-reaching implications for the Trump administration\u2019s mass deportation plans. Over the last month, heavily armed immigration agents<\/a>, often in masks and battle fatigues, have been aggressively detaining immigrants<\/a> and U.S. citizens at Home Depots, car washes, and Latino markets across Los Angeles. Trump and other leaders have promised to bring similar raids to other major U.S. cities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Frimpong wrote, \u201cthe individuals and organizations who have brought this lawsuit have made a fairly modest request: that this court order the federal government to stop.\u201d Frimpong wrote: \u201cThe court grants their request.\u201d<\/p>\n

The order bars federal agents from conducting detention stops in the district unless the agent has \u201creasonable suspicion\u201d the person stopped is in \u201cviolation of U.S. immigration law.\u201d The order prohibits agents from relying solely on four factors, either alone or in combination, that include “apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, presence at a particular location (e.g. bus stop, car wash, tow yard, day laborer pick up site, agricultural site, ect), the type of work one does.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter the color of their skin, what language they speak, or where they work, everyone is guaranteed constitutional rights to protect them from unlawful stops,\u201d Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California said in a statement. \u201cWhile it does not take a federal judge to recognize that marauding bands of masked, rifle-toting goons have been violating ordinary people\u2019s rights throughout Southern California, we are hopeful that today\u2019s ruling will be a step toward accountability for the federal government\u2019s flagrant lawlessness that we have all been witnessing.\u201d<\/p>\n

A second ruling orders the federal government to allow immigrants who have been detained to have access to counsel, and repeats concerns about the conditions in which they\u2019ve been detained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIndividuals \u2026 are being kept in small, windowless rooms with dozens or more other detainees in cramped quarters. Detainees are also routinely deprived of food, and some have not even been given water other than what comes out of the combined sink and toilet in the group detention room,\u201d the order states.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it unlawful to prevent people from having access to lawyers who can help them in immigration court? Yes it is,\u201d the judge wrote, describing an incident in which federal officers deployed chemical agents against family members, attorneys and representatives seeking access to people being detained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a basement holding area meant to only temporarily process immigrants, people have been held for extended periods of time and denied access to necessary medical care and medications. \u201cThe facility cannot provide detainees with basic hygiene; individuals who are menstruating have had to wait long periods before receiving menstrual pads, if they receive them at all,\u201d Frimpong wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a Thursday court hearing on the order, attorneys for the Department of Homeland Security argued that the plaintiffs should provide a $30 million bond to pay for training for agents to comply with the court’s order. Frimpong denied that request, writing that her restraining order \u201cdoes not require any deviation from the training and the policies that appear to be in place, but rather compliance with the existing law.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The complaint, brought by the ACLU and a host of other rights groups, labeled the raids an unconstitutional \u201cimmigration dragnet,\u201d driven by arrest quotas rather than probable cause or credible evidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Border Patrol carried out a similar, though smaller scale, operation in Kern County in January. Patrol agents arrested farmworkers and daylaborers after slashing tires, breaking windows, pulling people out of their cars, and throwing a grandmother to the ground. That too was halted by a federal judge<\/a> along similar grounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response to that lawsuit, the Department of Homeland Security said it would be retraining some 900 Border Patrol agents on the constitution and following the Fourth Amendment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles area sweeps began more than a month ago with Homeland Security Investigations agents serving warrants at the Ambiance Apparel factory and storefront on June 6; dozens of people were detained. Since then, DHS says it has arrested 2,792 unauthorized immigrants in the Los Angeles area.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those raids turned deadly on Friday when a farmworker fell several stories off a greenhouse during Thursday\u2019s large-scale operation at a marijuana farm in Camarillo, according to the United Farm Workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFarm workers rise before dawn to feed this country \u2014 there is no labor more dignified,\u201d said Teresa Romero, president of United Farm Workers. \u201cNo one should be targeted, profiled, or terrorized for being brown and working hard. We are pleased the court recognized what\u2019s at stake: the basic right to live and work without fear. We will keep fighting until that right is fully protected for all farm workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ACLU and Public Counsel filed the lawsuit on behalf of several immigrants arrested at Los Angeles area bus stops and two U.S. citizens who were also caught up in what the plaintiffs argue were \u201cindiscriminate sweeps.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The federal government argues agents are conducting highly targeted operations, indicating they are arresting specific people. The leader of the LA operation, Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino, made the same claim<\/a> about the Kern County operation, which he led. But Border Patrol documents later showed<\/a> it had no previous record of 77 of the 78 people it arrested.<\/p>\n

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin continued to make the same argument in response to the judge\u2019s decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA district judge is undermining the will of the American people,\u201d she said. \u201cAmerica\u2019s brave men and women are removing murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles, rapists\u2014truly the worst of the worst from Golden State communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling does not stop the federal government from obtaining search warrants and continuing workplace raids. A hearing on whether the temporary restraining order should be extended into a preliminary injunction is expected in the coming weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Wendy Fry and Sergio Olmos, CalMatters Federal agents descend on MacArthur Park in Los Angeles on July…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":59230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,409,2961,224,5337],"class_list":{"0":"post-59229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-immigration","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-losangeles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114839558854868524","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}