Plaintiffs at the heart of the legal case pushing back on the Trump administration’s massive crackdown on illegal immigration in Southern California on Monday celebrated what they called a legal and moral victory, after an appeals court upheld a pause on barring federal agents from arrests without probable cause.
But, they warned, the win — which came late Friday after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the federal government’s appeal on a lower court decision in a case called Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem — was only temporary.
“This is a landmark victory not just for those in the courtroom, but for every farm worker, garment worker, day laborer who’s been profiled, harassed or simply detained just for existing,” said Armando Gudino, executive director of the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, calling Friday’s decision a “resounding affirmation of what we’ve always known, that being born brown, speaking Spanish, an immigrant or just showing up to work is not probable cause.”
Leaders from civil rights groups and former detainees gathered at the Los Angeles office of the American Civil Liberties Union, saying they are ready to fight their case — all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Friday, the three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld U.S. District Court Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong’s temporary restraining order that halted the federal government’s month-long immigration crackdown in counties across Southern California.
That crackdown — largely quieted by the ruling — has hit a range of Southern California sites, from Home Depot parking lots to garment factories, and from construction sites to car washes.
In Friday’s 61-page ruling, the panel mostly agreed with Frimpong, ruling that the government’s roving immigration patrols were illegally conducted without reasonable suspicion.
The federal government’s attorneys wanted the panel to issue a stay on that ruling and the restraining order, arguing that Frimpong was wrong in her July 11 ruling.
A stay would have lifted the restraining order, allowing agents to resume their massive dragnet in Southern California counties.
But the panel — Judges Ronald M. Gould, Marsha S. Berzon and Jennifer Sung — found that the “the individual plaintiffs have made a sufficient showing of future injury to establish standing to seek injunctive relief,” and that factors that would have allowed the government to stay the lower court ruling had not been met by Department of Justice attorneys.
In effect, agents will continue to be prohibited from stopping people without reasonable suspicion, nor “sole reliance” on apparent race or ethnicity; speaking Spanish or English with an accent; presence in a particular location like a bus stop, car wash, or agricultural site; or the type of work a person does.
“While this TRO is in effect, we have a message for the federal government,” said Mohammad Tajsar, staff attorney for the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, imploring people to speak up if they see possible violations of the upheld ruling. “We will be watching.”
In the meantime, the pause of “roving patrols” stays in effect in seven counties across the Southland, including Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Luis Obispo, San Bernardino.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is “continuing to implement its immigration policies lawfully,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, told the Southern California News Group on Monday.
“No federal judge has the authority to dictate immigration policy — that authority rests with Congress and the president,” Jackson said. “Enforcement operations require careful planning and execution; skills far beyond the purview or jurisdiction of any judge.”
It was unclear Monday whether Justice Department attorneys will appeal yet again. Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, declined to comment.
If the federal government does appeal, this time it would go to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it could once again argue — as its attorneys did in front of the 9th Circuit judges — that the immigration stops were perfectly legal, carefully targeted and conducted with probable cause to make arrests.
“The officers are instructed to find reasonable suspicion before an arrest,” U.S. Department of Justice Attorney Jacob Roth told the appeals panel in oral arguments in front of the 9th Circuit last week, adding that Frimpong’s restraining order “is fundamentally flawed on multiple levels.”
They could find more sympathetic ears.
On the 9th Circuit, Judges Berzon and Gould were both appointees of former President Bill Clinton, and Sung was appointed by former President Joe Biden. The U.S. Supreme Court has a 6-to-3 ratio of Republican-to-Democratic-appointed by presidents, with three by President Donald Trump.
Trump and his administration have long argued that the nation is witnessing an “invasion” of immigrants, with particular ire toward the Biden administration, which reversed many of the tough immigration policies of Trump’s first term.
Among his first actions in office, Trump signed an executive order under powers vested by the Immigration and Nationality Act. Citing “many of these aliens … committing vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans,” it became the foundation for the massive crackdown across the nation.
By June 6, people in Los Angeles and surrounding cities and counties were witnessing unannounced immigration raids by masked and armed agents at workplaces such as Home Depots, car washes, landscaping and construction sites.
Despite widespread community protests in Southern California, the Trump administration has touted the operation, saying it is ridding the nation of the “worst of the worst” criminal immigrants who are in the nation illegally.
This weekend, the White House promoted reports that the U.S. is on track to see negative net migration for the first time in at least five decades.
A possible fight to the highest court in the land would not be anything new for Mark Rosenbaum, senior special counsel for strategic litigation at Public Counsel, who has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court four times.
He said the lawsuit simply asks for equal protection under the law.
“If the government seeks to push this case to the U.S. Supreme Court, it is asking the justices to bless racial profiling as lawful enforcement,” he said Monday. “It is asking the justices to establish for the first time in our nation’s history that people can be detained and arrested based solely on their race. That would be a dangerous precedent,” Rosenbaum said, noting that instead of a crackdown on the “worst of the worst,” the operation went after nannies, car wash workers and farm workers.
The appeal itself stems from a lawsuit filed July 2 by Southern California residents. The case is called Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, et al., v. Kristi Noem, named for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and for Perdomo, one of the three detained at a Pasadena bus stop.
Perdemo, Carlos Alexander Osorto and Isaac Villegas Molina were sitting at a bus stop across from a Pasadena Winchell’s Donuts on the morning of June 18.
“I was simply standing at a bus stop, waiting to get to work like I do every day,” Perdemo said in Spanish on Monday. “Then, without warning, several unmarked cars showed up. Men jumped out, grabbed me and my coworkers, and took us away like we were criminals. Like we were nothing. They didn’t tell us who they were, they didn’t explain why. They abducted us.”
Along with Jorge Hernandez Viramontes, of Baldwin Park — questioned and detained from his job at an Orange County car wash — and Jason Brian Gavidia, an East L.A. resident, stopped and questioned from an L.A. County tow yard, they are the lead plaintiffs.
Perdomo and Molina have posted bond and have been released. Jose Madera, director of the Pasadena Community Job Center, said they hope Osorto will be released on bond this week.
Perdomo said he was chained with 52 other people in a small room with no bathroom. A diabetic, he said the food they were given was inedible. He received no help when he developed an eye infection. He remains afraid “that just standing outside could mean being taken again.”
“I’m telling my story and I am a plaintiff in this lawsuit because I don’t want silence to be my story,” Perdomo said.
But Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary with the Department of Homeland Security, said Trump and Noem “are putting the American people first by removing illegal aliens who pose a threat to our community.”
“What makes someone a target of ICE is if they are illegally in the U.S. — NOT their skin color, race or ethnicity,” McLaughlin said. “America’s brave men and women are removing murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles, rapists — truly the worst of the worst from Golden State communities. 70% of ICE arrests are of criminal illegal aliens who have been convicted or have pending charges.”
“Law and order will prevail,” McLaughlin said.
While federal officials did not say Monday whether there would be an appeal, the federal lawsuit itself will continue in due course. At the federal district court level, Frimpong had scheduled a hearing in the case on Sept. 24, Tajsar said.