A federal judge temporarily blocked Trump administration enforcement advocates alleged illegal docks and arrests that terrorized Angelens, forcing some immigrants to hide and damage the local economy.
The ruling of the Biden-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong was a lawsuit picked up at a bus stop and two U.S. citizens after a hearing Thursday in a lawsuit filed on behalf of several immigration rights groups, one of whom was detained and one of whom was detained, despite showing his identification.
Frimpong said in the ruling that she found enough evidence that agents are stopping people’s stopping based on their race, language, career or where they are (such as Home Depot or Carwash) to form reasonable suspicion to prevent the possibility of someone violating immigration laws.
Frimpong said in the order that the dependence on these factors (individually or combined) does not meet the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
“Faced with a lot of evidence in this situation, the federal government will convince the court that none of this actually happened,” she said.
The judge ordered that federal agents could not use these factors to establish reasonable suspicion to detain people. Moreover, all persons detained in urban detention centers known as B-18 must obtain 24 hours of access to lawyers and confidential telephone lines.
In the complaint, the plaintiff pointed out that immigrant agents were stranded by people with brown skin at home Depot parking lots, trucks and Southern California bus stations to show force, but did not confirm that they violated immigration laws. They claimed that the agents did not determine themselves as required by federal law, but violated the law and had no right to arrest them.
The complaint holds that once a person is detained, their constitutional rights are violated in the “tragic” conditions of B-18 without the need for contact with lawyers or regular food and water.
Frimpong firmly agreed with the plaintiffs, saying they are likely to succeed in the trial.
Immigration agents have arrested nearly 2,800 undocumented persons since June 6, according to data released by DHS on Tuesday. Analysis of arrest data from June 1 to 10 found that 69% of those arrested during this period were not convicted, while 58% were never charged with crime.
The sweep paralyzed the cities where a large number of immigrants worked.
Hours before the order was issued, Tom Homan, chief adviser to Trump’s border policy, responded to the tentative ruling and told Fox News: “If a judge makes a decision on the training of officials, the basis of the law,” he said, that would “close the action.”
He responded to government lawyers who believed that the agency decides whether to stop a person, and could consider location, career, clothing, running and other factors.
“ICE officials and the Border Patrol don't need a possible reason to walk to someone, briefly detain them and question them,” he said. “They just need the overall situation.”
He said agents are trained every six months in the Fourth Amendment.
During an hour-long hearing Thursday afternoon, Frimpong made a problem with Justice Department attorney Sean Skedzielewski, who lacked concrete evidence to refute the indiscriminate allegations.
When he argued that “these are complex actions” and seemed to say that the arrests stem from the arrest of a particular person, she questioned how it was true.
The judge noted that other local and federal law enforcement targeted crimes, there were reports of “why they arrested this person, how they happened to be, how they encountered it.”
“There doesn't seem to be anything like that here, which makes it difficult for the court to accept your description of what is going on because there is no evidence that it is what is going on, not what the plaintiff said is going on.”
Skedzielewski believes that the lack of evidence is the reason why the court should not approve the interim restraining order. He believes that the government has only “a few days” to try to identify the individuals mentioned in the court application.
“We just don’t have the chance to identify people who people stop in many cases, let alone win the agency on a holiday weekend,” he said.
Frimpong appears to be unmoved and questioned the government’s reliance on two senior officials who played a key role in the Southern California raid: Kyle Harvick, who is in charge of El Centro’s Border Patrol and Andre Quinones, deputy field office director for immigration and customs enforcement.
Their manifesto, she said, was “very average” and “had no real involvement in the records of what the plaintiffs saw and heard in the news.”
“If there were any of these people and there was a report about 'this is what we determined this trailer, parking lot, etc., it would be helpful,” Frimpong said. “It's hard for the court to believe that you can't do that in that time you have.”
Skedzielewski said the evidence was full of cessation, but “there is no evidence that those cessation or in any way fail to comply with the law.”
He said the broker's actions were “on the board.”
Mohammad Tajsar, an attorney for the Southern California ACLU, told the judge that agents cannot use only one person’s workplace, their location, or the specific work they are doing as a reason to stop people.
Tajsar added that it was precisely because of the government’s “misunderstanding of the law” that they stopped a lot with American citizens, including Brian Gavidia, a plaintiff who was detained by a Border Patrol outside the Montebello trailer house.
Tajisar said Gavidia, who attended the court during the hearing, was stopped in the Latino area, which was mainly Latino area, “no other reason except for the fact that he is Latino, working in the trailer tract.
“We have seen a lot of unconstitutional and illegal arrests due to this basic misunderstanding of the law by the government,” Tajsar said.
Tajsar also rejected government lawyers saying they didn’t have enough time, saying: “They have the time and have all the evidence.”
This week, the city and county of Los Angeles, as well as Pasadena, Montebello, Monterey Park, Santa Monica, Culver City, Pico Rivera and West Hollywood – attempting to join the lawsuit.
In their court documents, cities and counties retort that the raid was not actually about immigration enforcement, but politically taking the political drive of “taking the example of “implementing policies that Donald J. Trump doesn’t like.”
They quoted Trump’s post on his social media platform, where he called on immigration officials to “go out all out” to achieve “the largest massive deportation program in history” by expanding efforts to detain and deport Los Angeles and other cities that are “central to the democratic power.”
The U.S. Department of Justice attorneys believe that detention is legal and that the judge should not approximately grant any relief.
“The government has legal and significant interest in ensuring the implementation of immigration laws, and any restrictions will seriously violate the President's Article 2 authority,” the government lawyer wrote.
