A federal appeals court on Friday night denied the Trump administration’s attempt to pause a restraining order that bars immigration authorities from conducting certain types of enforcement actions in Los Angeles and surrounding counties, leaving the order in place while litigation continues.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to issue a stay in a case challenging Department of Homeland Security practices that, according to plaintiffs, led to the unlawful detention and disappearance of Southern California residents without warrants or legal justification.
The ruling keeps in effect a temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by a lower court in July, which prohibits DHS and other federal immigration agents from stopping individuals based solely on race, language, location, or type of work. Specifically, the court found that using factors such as speaking Spanish or English with an accent, being present in places like agricultural sites or bus stops, or working in industries commonly associated with immigrant labor did not amount to reasonable suspicion under the law.
The lawsuit was filed earlier this summer by a coalition of Southern California residents, advocacy groups, and legal organizations who allege that immigration agents carried out warrantless arrests and confined individuals at a federal building in unsafe conditions without legal access to counsel.
In a statement, Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said the court’s decision underscored the seriousness of the plaintiffs’ claims. “This decision is further confirmation that the administration’s paramilitary invasion of Los Angeles violated the Constitution and caused irreparable injury across the region,” he said.
Annie Lai, director of the Immigrant and Racial Justice Solidarity Clinic at UC Irvine School of Law, praised the outcome. “None of this would have been possible without everyday people willing to stand up and fight for their rights and the rights of their fellow neighbors, co-workers, and loved ones,” Lai said. “This win belongs to them.”
Mark Rosenbaum, senior special counsel for strategic litigation at Public Counsel, warned that if the government continues trying to overturn the TRO, it “is asking the courts to sanction racial profiling — and to establish, for the first time in our nation’s history, that people can be detained and arrested based solely on their race and appearance.”
Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, called the ruling a step forward but emphasized the human cost of the enforcement actions. “The real victory will be when all of those who were detained, disappeared, and torn away from their loved ones and communities through these illegal actions and tactics are safely home,” Salas said.
Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers, framed the decision as a win for immigrant laborers. “You can’t just snatch people up for being brown and working hard. Not in the fields, not in a Home Depot parking lot, and not on our watch,” she said.
Armando Gudino, executive director of the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, added, “The court has upheld what we’ve always known: that dignity, safety, and justice belong to every worker, regardless of what language we speak, where we stand, or the work we do.”
Lindsay Toczylowski, president and CEO of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said the ruling “reaffirms that nobody is above the law — not even the federal government.”
The plaintiffs are represented by a coalition of legal organizations, including the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Public Counsel, the Law Offices of Stacy Tolchin, UC Irvine’s Immigrant and Racial Justice Solidarity Clinic, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and others.
The case is ongoing.