Judge bars race-based ICE stops in Southern California

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ordered immigration agents in seven Southern California counties to stop detaining people based on racial stereotypes. She found what she called a mountain of evidence that agents went after people who appear Latino ¹. The Justice Department's own lawyer describes the area covered as "a District of 20 million people" ¹.

U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong partly granted the request for a preliminary injunction on Friday, Oct. 23, under seal ⁴. A preliminary injunction is a court order that takes effect while a lawsuit is still being argued. Her order was made public Thursday, Oct. 29 ¹. On Wednesday, the Trump administration filed a notice of appeal with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and asked for the order to be put on hold while that appeal goes forward ¹.

What the order requires

The order bars agents from making detentive stops based on racial stereotyping. The only exceptions are stops at a port of entry, a checkpoint or a "functional equivalent" of the border ²³. It covers Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties ².

Under the order, an agent must weigh "the totality of circumstances" before stopping someone. Agents may not rely only on a person seeming to be low-income or working-class and Latino ²³. The judge also partly certified a class, which means the protection reaches a whole group of affected people, not just the people who filed the suit ²³.

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Frimpong found the plaintiffs likely to prove that the stops violate two parts of the Constitution ¹. One is the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable seizures. The other is the Fifth Amendment's promise of equal protection. She pointed to evidence of an unwritten, "officially sanctioned" policy of targeting people who appear Latino. She also stressed that her ruling is not a final finding that such a policy exists ¹.

What the evidence showed

The record includes body-camera video from a June 2025 raid at a Hollywood Home Depot, where an agent used a term for a migrant that the plaintiffs' complaint calls a racial slur ¹³. Agents' text messages also used the word "tonks" ¹. The complaint says the term refers to the sound of a flashlight striking a migrant's head ³.

The judge cited Latino U.S. citizens whose attempts to establish their citizenship were rejected. One was a car wash worker who said an agent refused to let him retrieve his passport ¹. She also cited accounts of Latino workers and customers who were detained while white people nearby were left alone ¹. The plaintiffs say a late-May 2025 email from ICE headquarters told field offices to arrest "collaterals," meaning people who were not targets, in large numbers ¹.

A second try after the Supreme Court stepped in

This is Frimpong's second order in the case. In July 2025, she barred agents from stopping people based only on race, language, job or location ⁷⁶. On Sept. 8, 2025, the Supreme Court lifted that order by a 6-3 vote ⁶. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that people had been "grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents" ⁶.

In that 2025 decision, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a separate opinion saying a person's apparent ethnicity can matter when combined with other factors ¹. Frimpong wrote that his opinion is not binding precedent. She said the new request is different because it rests on new evidence, new legal arguments and a different kind of relief ¹.

This Court cannot be faulted for failing to follow guidance that was never given

At a September hearing, Justice Department lawyer Daniel Mummolo argued that the record was the same as what the Supreme Court had already looked at ¹. Annie Lai, who directs a law clinic at the University of California, Irvine, that helps represent the plaintiffs, called the new evidence "a damning record" ¹.

What the government says

In asking for a stay, a senior Justice Department lawyer told the appeals court the order would hamper agents in the field ¹. The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly denied racial profiling. It has said Kavanaugh's opinion "vindicated" the way it operates ¹.

gravely hinders the government's ability to conduct immigration stops.

In a statement, the department also asked, "Where is the media's outrage for Angel families who lost a loved one to illegal alien crime?" ³. "Angel families" is a term for relatives of people killed in crimes committed by immigrants in the country illegally.

Local leaders respond

Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said, "ICE agents are not targeting violent criminals. They are racially profiling our Latino residents" ⁵. Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda Solis said the ruling "confirms what we have known to be true." She noted that the government is challenging the ruling again ⁵.

This is an assault on our entire Latino community, and this federal judge cites a 'mountain of evidence' proving it.

Mohammad Tajsar of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California, which brought the case, said the plaintiffs "will now closely monitor compliance with this court order" ².

That matters because the protection may not last. In 2025 the Supreme Court sided with the administration about eight weeks after Frimpong's first order ⁶. The case is now back on the same path, and the appeals court will decide first whether agents must follow this order while the fight goes on ¹.

The Record

1. Jul 11, 2025Judge Frimpong temporarily bars immigration stops in the Los Angeles area based on race, language, job or location ⁷⁶
2. Sep 8, 2025The Supreme Court votes 6-3 to lift her order; Justice Sotomayor dissents ⁶
3. Oct 23, 2026Frimpong partly grants a new preliminary injunction against race-based stops and certifies a class, under seal ⁴
4. Oct 28, 2026The Trump administration files a notice of appeal to the 9th Circuit and asks for a stay ¹
5. Oct 29, 2026The order is made public, covering seven Southern California counties ¹²

Sources

1. Los Angeles Times (via Yahoo News), “'Mountain of evidence' ICE agents discriminated against Latinos, judge says” (2026-10-29). yahoo.com/news/us/articles/federal-judge-blocks-ice-making-1
2. ACLU of Southern California, “Federal Court Blocks Unlawful Suspicionless, Racially Discriminatory Immigration Stops in Southern California” (2026-10-29). aclusocal.org/press-releases/federal-court-blocks-unlawful-s
3. MyNewsLA, “LA Judge Blocks DHS from Making Suspicionless, Discriminatory Stops” (2026-10-29). mynewsla.com/orange-county/2026/10/29/la-judge-blocks-suspic
4. MyNewsLA, “LA Judge Partly Grants Request to Block Suspicionless Stops by DHS” (2026-10-23). mynewsla.com/weather/2026/10/23/la-judge-partly-grants-reque
5. Los Cerritos Community News, “Federal Court Ruling Blocks Discriminatory Immigration Stops in Los Angeles, Orange, and Five Other Counties” (2026-10-29). loscerritosnews.net/2026/10/29/federal-court-ruling-blocks-d
6. PBS NewsHour (AP), “Supreme Court ends restrictions on LA immigration stops set after agents swept up U.S. citizens” (2025-09-08). pbs.org/newshour/nation/supreme-court-ends-restrictions-on-l
7. CBS Los Angeles, “Trump administration to appeal order halting immigration raids in Southern California” (2025-07-13). cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/trump-appeal-order-halting-immig

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