The Supreme Court Monday paused a federal judge's order barring federal agents from detaining suspected undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles based on factors like their race, language and type of job. The 6-3 decision, delivered in a brief, unsigned emergency docket order, arrived as the Trump administration launched immigration operations in Chicago, Boston and other Democratic-run cities. The court's three liberal justices dissented, while conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued a concurring opinion.
Who said what
Attorney General Pam Bondi called the ruling a "massive victory" that allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to "continue carrying out roving patrols in California without judicial micromanagement." California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said President Donald Trump's "hand-picked Supreme Court majority" had approved a "parade of racial terror in Los Angeles," with ICE agents "targeting Latinos and anyone who doesn't look or sound like Stephen Miller's idea of an American, including U.S. citizens and children."
"Apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion," Kavanaugh wrote, but "it can be a 'relevant factor' when considered along with other salient factors" like speaking Spanish or working certain jobs. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure "may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little." The "entirely unexplained" majority opinion is "unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation’s constitutional guarantees," she wrote.
What next?
Monday's ruling was "not the final word in the case, which is pending before a federal appeals court and may again reach the justices," The New York Times said. The "majority's failure to provide an explanation for the ruling" made it difficult to discern "whether its reasoning applies nationwide or is limited to the Los Angeles area," but "there is little doubt" it will have the "practical effect of further emboldening" Trump's "uncompromising" mass deportation campaign.
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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.
