Court keeps order blocking administration from indiscriminate immigration sweeps : NPR

People are waiting outside of Glass House Farms, one day after an immigration raid in the establishment, Friday, July 11, 2025, in Camallo, California.

Jae C. Hong / AP

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Jae C. Hong / AP

LOS Angeles – A federal court of appeal ruled on Friday evening to maintain the temporary ordinance of a lower court preventing the Trump administration from making blind stops and arrests in southern California.

A panel of three judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States held a hearing on Monday afternoon during which the federal government asked the Court to cancel a temporary prohibition order rendered on July 12 by judge Maame E. Frimpong, arguing that it hampered its application of the Immigration Act.

Immigrant defense groups brought an action last month, accusing President Donald Trump’s administration to systematically target people with brown skin in South California during the repression of the administration against illegal immigration. The trial included three detained immigrants and two American citizens as a complainants.

In his order, Frimpong said that there was a “mountain of evidence” that federal tactics for the application of immigration violated the Constitution. She has written that the government cannot use factors such as the race or the apparent ethnic origin, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, a presence in a place such as a towing or car washing, or the occupation of someone as the only basis for reasonable suspicions of holding someone.

The Los Angeles Region was a battlefield with the Trump administration on its aggressive immigration strategy that stimulated protests and the deployment of national guards and marines for several weeks. Federal agents have gathered immigrants without legal status to be in the United States since the original deposits, car washing, bus stops and farms, many of whom have been living in the country for decades.

Among the complainants is Brian Gavidia, a resident of Los Angeles, who was shown in a video taken by a friend on June 13 seized by federal agents while he cried: “I was born here in the United States, East la Bro!”

They want to “send us back to a world where an American citizen … can be caught, slammed against a fence and make themselves that his phone and his identifier were taken just because he worked in a towing courtyard in a Latin district,” said the prosecutor of the American Civil Liberties Union, Mohammad Tajsar.

The federal government argued that it had not had enough time to collect and present evidence in the trial, since it was tabled shortly before the July 4 holidays and that an audience took place the following week.

“It is a very serious thing to say that several federal government agencies have a policy of violating the Constitution,” said lawyer Jacob Roth.

He also argued that the order of the lower court was too wide and that the defenders of immigrants had not presented enough evidence to prove that the government had an official policy of arresting people without reasonable suspicion.

He referred to the four breed, language, presence and occupation factors that have been listed in the temporary ban order, claiming that the court should not be able to prohibit the government from using them. He also argued that the order was not clear on what is exactly allowed under the law.

“Legally, I think it is appropriate to use the factors for reasonable suspicion,” said Roth

The judges strongly questioned the government on their arguments.

“No one suggested that they do not consider these factors,” said judge Jennifer Sung.

However, these factors alone form only a “broad profile” and do not meet the standard of reasonable suspicion to stop someone, she said.

Sung, a named Biden, said that in a region like Los Angeles, where Latinos make up up to half of the population, these factors “cannot eliminate those who have undocumented status and those who have documented legal status”.

She also asked: “What is the harm not to do something that you claim that you are not already doing?”