A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked advocates who argued that the Trump administration was an illegal suspension and arrest that terrified Angelenos, but who claimed that some migrants had concealed their local economy and caused damage.
The ruling from Biden’s appointee, U.S. District Judge Mame Eusi Mensa Frimon, was heard in a lawsuit filed on behalf of several immigration rights groups on Thursday, when three immigrants were picked up at a bus stop and one was taken into custody despite one showing his identification.
Frimon said in his ruling that he found sufficient evidence that agents were stopping people based on race, language, calling, or where they were, such as Home Depot or carbohydrates.
Frimon said in her order that reliance on these factors, alone or in combination, did not meet the requirements of the fourth amendment.
“To make this court believe that this court is facing the mountain mountains presented in this case, it means that this is not really happening,” she said.
The judge ordered that federal agents cannot use these factors to establish the reasonable doubts necessary to detain people. and that all people detained in the Downtown Detention Facility known as the B-18 must be given 24-hour access to lawyers and confidential telephone lines.
The plaintiffs alleged that immigration agents cornered brown-skinned people at home depot parking lots and bus stops in Southern California, without establishing reasonable suspicion that they had violated immigration laws. They allegedly made an unlawful warrantless arrest, claiming that the agent failed to identify himself, as required under federal law.
Once someone is taken into custody, the complaint argues that their constitutional rights were further violated by being detained on B-18 under “dead” conditions without access to lawyers or regular food and water.
Frimon agreed with the plaintiffs and said they were likely to succeed in the trial.
Since June 6, immigration agents have arrested nearly 2,800 undocumented individuals, according to data released by the DHS on Tuesday. A time analysis of the arrest data from June 1 to 10 found that 69% of those arrested during that period were not criminally convicted, while 58% were never charged with a crime.
The sweep has a paralyzed part of a city where many migrants work.
Hours before the order was issued, Trump’s chief advisor on border policy, Tom Homan responded to the interim ruling, telling Fox News that “if judges make decisions on what is being trained and what the law is based on.”
He reflected a government lawyer who argued that agents could consider location, occupation, clothing, whether they would run, and other factors when deciding whether to stop someone.
“The Ice Officers and the Border Patrol don’t need any possible causes to approach someone, temporarily restrain them, or ask questions,” he said. “They just need the whole situation.”
He said agents will receive training in the fourth amendment every six months.
During a hours-long hearing Thursday afternoon, Flimon was troubled by Justice Department lawyer Sean Skezielevsky and the lack of specific evidence to refute the indiscriminate targeting charges.
When he claimed “these are sophisticated operations,” and apparently said he was arrested by certain targeted people, she questioned how true it was.
In other cases where local and federal law enforcement agencies target people for crimes, the judge noted that there have been reports after the arrest “about why they arrested this person, how they were, what they did.”
“It doesn’t seem to be anything like that here. It makes it difficult for the court to accept your explanation because there is no evidence that it is what is happening, as opposed to what the plaintiff is going on,” Frimon said.
Skedzielewski argued that the lack of evidence is the reason the court should not grant a temporary restraining order. He argued that the government had only had “a few days” to try to identify the individual mentioned in the court application.
“We often didn’t have the opportunity to identify who even people stopped them.
Frimon appears to have not moved, questioning his reliance on two senior officials who played a key role in the Southern California raid. Kyle Harvick of the Border Patro, who is in charge of El Centro, and Andre Quinones, assistant field office director for immigration and customs enforcement.
Their declaration was “very common” and “didn’t really involve the pretty large amount of evidence that the plaintiffs recorded records of what we all saw and heard on the news,” she said.
“If there were any of these people there and they had reports that ‘This is how we identified this towing yard, this parking lot, etc.’,” Flimon said. “It’s hard for the court to believe that when you had, you couldn’t do it.”
Skedzielewski said the evidence was full of cases of suspensions, but “it’s not full of those suspensions or evidence that agents did not follow the law in any way.”
He said the agent’s actions were “upper.”
Mohammad Tajsar, an attorney for the ACLU in Southern California, told the judge that agents can’t use only certain jobs that agents do as a person’s workplace, their place, or as a reason to stop people.
Tajsar added that it was because of a government “misunderstanding of the law” including Brian Gavidia, a plaintiff who was detained by Border Patrol agents outside the towing yard of Montebello.
Tajal said Gabizia, who attended the court during the hearing, was suspended mainly in the Latinos “for reasons other than the fact that she was Latinos and worked in towing yards.”
“Because of this fundamental misunderstanding of the law from the government, we have seen so many unconstitutional and unlawful arrests,” Tarjah said.
Tarja also told the government’s lawyer that he had no time and that he “has time and there is all the evidence.”
This week, Los Angeles cities and counties were attempting to join the suits alongside Pasadena, Montebello, Monterrey Park, Santa Monica, Culver City, Pico Rivera and West Hollywood.
In their court application, cities and counties countered that the attacks were not actually about immigration enforcement, but instead were politically driven to “set an example” for the region to “implement policies that President Donald J. Trump dislikes.”
They cited Trump’s posts on his social media platform. It calls for immigrant staff to exercise “all power” to achieve the “largest deportation program in history” by expanding efforts to detain and deport people from other cities, which are the “core of the Democratic Party.”
U.S. Department of Justice attorneys argued that detention is legal and that judges should not accept relief widely.
“The government has a legitimate and serious interest in ensuring that immigration laws are in effect, and any restrictions will seriously infringe the President’s Article II authorities,” the government’s lawyer wrote.
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