Appeals court upholds order barring DHS from immigration sweeps based on language, job

A federal appeals court upheld a lower ruling on Friday barring the Trump administration from solely considering race, language or employment as reasonable suspicion to detain migrants.

Their decision blocks Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials from conducting “indiscriminate immigration operations” as alleged by the plaintiffs in court filings. 

A group of five immigrants and four civil rights organizations filed a filed a lawsuit in early July alleging that immigration operations are based on racial bias, reporting harassment as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents flooded street corners, bus stops, parking lots, agricultural sites, day laborer corners and other places with checkpoints.

On July 12, Judge Maame E. Frimpong, a Biden appointee, issued the temporary restraining order after he said he was presented with a “mountain of evidence” proving ICE's arrests and stops were unconstitutional, according to The Associated Press. 

A day before Frimpong’s ruling, 200 California farm workers were arrested resulting in at least one death. Communities in the Golden State have been protesting the deportation raids and arrests, citing cruelties.  

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said if the Trump administration is not purposefully targeting individuals and communities, Frimpong’s order should not block their efforts. 

“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 of three judges wrote, per the AP. 

A future hearing for the order is slated for September as reported by the newswire. 

For now, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D-Calif.) celebrated the ruling as a protective covering for local residents.

"The Temporary Restraining Order that has been protecting our communities from immigration agents using racial profiling and other illegal tactics when conducting their cruel and aggressive enforcement raids and sweeps will remain in place for now,” she said in a Friday statement.