Court Bars Immigration Agents From Using Racial Stereotypes In SoCal Stops

LOS ANGELES, CA — A Los Angeles federal judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from conducting suspicionless and racially discriminatory immigration stops across Southern California, court papers obtained Thursday show.

U.S. District Judge Maame Frimpong also partly certified a class of individuals who have been affected by the practice.

Following evidence presented in the case, the court order prohibits defendants from enforcing the policy and practice of conducting detention stops in the Central District of California based on racial stereotyping except when such a stop is conducted at a port of entry, checkpoint or other functional equivalent of the border.

The ruling applies to the Central District of California, which includes the seven counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura.

The order was issued Friday, but largely sealed from public view until the following week.

The order specifies that in developing reasonable suspicion, "an immigration agent or officer must consider the totality of circumstances and may not rely solely on apparent status as low-income or working-class and Latino, even when an identified target is allegedly low-income or working-class and Latino."

Evidence showed federal agents were carrying out an ongoing campaign of warrantless and discriminatory immigration enforcement stops in the region since the summer of 2025.

The request for a preliminary injunction stemmed from a case in which residents, Latino workers and immigration advocacy groups sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, alleging unconstitutional detention practices.

According to the ACLU of Southern California, which is representing plaintiffs in the case, the Trump administration is targeting "people who appear Latino and low-income or working-class."

In a video discussed in the plaintiffs' motion for a block on the alleged stops, a DHS agent is captured saying to another: "Yeah, just plug us in wherever you see some tonks," while other agents guessed whether people were "wet" simply based on appearance.

The complaint says "tonks" is a derogatory and violent term understood to refer to the sound of a flashlight striking a migrant's head. "Wet" is short for "wetback" and is a racist slur historically directed at Mexican and other Latino immigrants crossing the Rio Grande.

In response to the suit, the DHS has frequently insisted federal agents in the field are operating within the law to protect American citizens.

"Our agents are focused on protecting the American people — not entertaining performative outrage," according to a statement from DHS. "Where is the media's outrage for Angel families who lost a loved one to illegal alien crime?"

"Angel families" refers to the relatives of those killed by undocumented individuals present in the United States.

Frimpong heard arguments in September in Los Angeles federal court.

"This order recognizes that the armed goons who targeted and abducted Latino community members in Southern California were in fact simply racially profiling as many people as they could get handcuffs on, a practice that violates multiple provisions of the U.S. Constitution," Mohammad Tajsar, director of immigrants' rights at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said in a statement.

"Having spent more than a year amassing reams of evidence of widespread illegal behavior, we will now closely monitor compliance with this court order to make sure we end this project of racist immigration enforcement once and for all."

The July motion for restrictions on immigration stops includes body camera footage and depositions of federal agents as part of evidence ordered by Frimpong after the U.S. Supreme Court stayed an earlier temporary restraining order last year which allowed the challenged practices to continue unabated.

Plaintiffs argue the Constitution prohibits law enforcement from using race as a substitute for individualized suspicion. The motion alleges the stops violate both the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection.

"For over a year, agents have been showing up at car washes and taking people without a warrant, never asking whether they have a family and a home to return to," said Flor Melendrez, executive director of CLEAN Carwash Worker Center, a member of the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, a plaintiff in the case.

"The law requires more than a biased guess about someone's status, and today the court made the government follow it. Our community fought for this protection, and we will hold the government to it on every street and at every car wash."

County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda Solis also applauded the ruling.

"Today's ruling confirms what we have known to be true: The Trump administration's federal immigration enforcement has violated the law by making racially discriminatory stops in Southern California to unlawfully detain individuals," Solis said in a statement.

"Over the last year and a half, federal immigration enforcement has terrorized communities, including residents in Los Angeles County, sowing fear and instability in the lives of working people and families," she said. "The injunction set by the court's decision recognizes the federal government's insistence on an unlawful policy and a growing record of an administration that continues to find opportunity to undermine the constitutional rights of the people. While the ruling is being challenged again, Los Angeles County remains firmly committed to standing with Angelenos and their civil liberties."

County Supervisor Janice Hahn also commended the ruling.

"ICE agents are not targeting violent criminals," Hahn said in a statement. "They are racially profiling our Latino residents — grabbing people because of how they look, the way they speak or where they work. This is an assault on our entire Latino community and this federal judge cites a `mountain of evidence' proving it.

"I welcome the judge's order, but we all know that as long as ICE roams our streets, our residents' rights will continue to be violated."

By Fred Shuster, City News Service