Supreme Court lifts restrictions on LA immigration stops

WASHINGTON (AP):

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for federal agents to conduct sweeping immigration operations for now in Los Angeles (LA), the latest victory for President Donald Trump's administration at the high court.

The conservative majority lifted a restraining order from a judge who found that roving patrols were conducting indiscriminate stops in and around LA. The order had barred immigration agents from stopping people solely based on their race, language, job or location.

The court's 6-3 decision followed a pattern of at least temporarily allowing some of the Republican administration's harshest policies, while leaving room for the possibility of a different outcome after the legal case plays out fully. The net effect, meanwhile, has Trump pushing ahead in many of the areas he considers most critical.

The majority did not explain its reasoning, as is typical on the court's emergency docket. But Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the lower-court judge had gone too far in restricting how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can carry out brief stops for questioning.

"The prospect of such after-the-fact judicial second-guessing and contempt proceedings will inevitably chill lawful immigration enforcement efforts," he wrote in a concurrence.

In a stinging dissent joined by her two liberal colleagues, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision erodes constitutional freedoms.

"Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labour," she wrote. "Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities."

Kavanaugh suggested stops in which agents use force could yet face legal challenges.

The Supreme Court's decision comes as ICE agents also step up enforcement in Washington as part of Trump's unprecedented federal takeover of the capital city's law enforcement and deployment of the National Guard.

The lawsuit will now continue to unfold in California. It was filed by immigrant advocacy groups that accused the Trump administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people during his administration's crackdown on illegal immigration in the LA area.

US District Judge Maame E. Frimpong in LA had found a "mountain of evidence" that enforcement tactics were violating the Constitution. The plaintiffs included US citizens swept up in immigration stops. An appeals court had left Frimpong's ruling in place.

Federal attorneys have said immigration officers target people based on illegal presence in the US, not skin colour, race or ethnicity. Even so, the Justice Department argued that ICE agents can use at least some of those factors in combination with others, and Kavanaugh said apparent ethnicity could be a relevant factor for a stop.

The Department of Homeland Security said last week that authorities had made 5,210 immigration arrests since June 6.