What happened
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.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Political cartoons for November 9Cartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include a ripoff, and the land of opportunity
-
A ‘golden age’ of nuclear powerThe Explainer The government is promising to ‘fire up nuclear power’. Why, and how?
-
Massacre in Darfur: the world looked the other wayTalking Point Atrocities in El Fasher follow decades of repression of Sudan’s black African population
-
Gregory Bovino: the officer leading Trump’s strong-arm immigration tacticsIn the Spotlight He has been referred to as the Border Patrol’s ‘commander-at-large’
-
Judge issues injunction on DHS use of forceSpeed Read Agents can only use force under the ‘immediate threat of physical harm’
-
41 political cartoons for October 2025Cartoons Editorial cartoonists take on Donald Trump, ICE, Stephen Miller, the government shutdown, a peace plan in the Middle East, Jeffrey Epstein, and more.
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Chicago: Scenes from a city under siegeFeature Chicago is descending into chaos as masked federal agents target people in public spaces and threaten anyone who tries to document the arrests
-
How are ICE’s recruitment woes complicating Trump’s immigration agenda?TODAY’S BIG QUESTION Lowered training standards and ‘athletically allergic’ hopefuls are hindering the White House plan to turn the Department of Homeland Security into a federal police force
