Federal judge restricts ICE's racial profiling stops (again)
The new court order limits when immigration agents can detain people on streets, at workplaces and during vehicle stops. Enforcement can continue as the federal government appeals.
[reporting: Santa Ana, Calif.]
A federal judge has ordered immigration agents to stop conducting racially discriminatory detentions across Southern California, including Santa Ana, after reviewing evidence that officers targeted Latino workers and residents without sufficient legal justification.
Read the injunction here.
The preliminary injunction, made public Thursday, Oct. 29, requires federal immigration agents to establish individualized reasonable suspicion before detaining someone for immigration enforcement rather than relying on racial stereotypes.
The Trump administration has appealed the ruling to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, setting up another legal battle over immigration enforcement practices that have drawn scrutiny across the region.
The appeal does not automatically suspend the injunction. Unless a court puts the order on hold, the federal agents covered by it must comply with its restrictions.
The ruling comes amid continued concerns about immigration enforcement in Santa Ana, where federal operations and the treatment of people observing immigration activity have raised questions about law enforcement accountability.
Santa Ana was among 21 cities that joined the legal effort to stop the challenged immigration enforcement practices. Anaheim also participated.
The court's 84-page order describes sworn accounts of federal agents surrounding vehicles, stopping drivers and detaining people allegedly based on their appearance.
According to one account in the document, a person said agents explained the stop by saying he looked like a “paisa,” a colloquial Spanish term sometimes used to refer to someone from Mexico or another Latin American country.
U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong concluded that the plaintiffs had presented sufficient evidence to justify temporarily prohibiting the government's challenged practice of racially discriminatory immigration stops while the lawsuit continues.
The judge emphasized that the injunction is not a final determination that the government maintained an unlawful policy.
The Department of Homeland Security has... previously denied allegations that its agents engage in racial profiling.
The ruling does not mean ICE operations must stop. Federal immigration agents may still conduct investigations and make legally justified arrests.
For now, immigration enforcement remains permitted, but racial stereotypes cannot substitute for the individualized reasonable suspicion required by the injunction. Whether those restrictions remain in place will depend in part on what happens next in federal appeals court.
Can immigration agents stop someone walking down a Santa Ana street?
Agents may approach someone in public and ask questions. But an encounter becomes legally different when officers detain a person and prevent them from leaving.
Under the new injunction, immigration agents cannot detain someone simply because they appear Latino or appear to be Latino and working class.
Instead, agents must have specific, individualized facts establishing reasonable suspicion of an immigration violation.
Walking through a predominantly Latino neighborhood, waiting for work or standing outside a business does not automatically establish reasonable suspicion.
Can agents stop someone driving through Santa Ana?
Yes, but a vehicle stop for immigration enforcement must have a lawful basis.
The injunction prohibits agents from relying on racial stereotypes as a substitute for individualized reasonable suspicion.
A driver's apparent Latino ethnicity, including when combined with an apparent working-class occupation, is not enough on its own to justify an immigration detention.
Agents must have individualized reasonable suspicion before conducting an investigative immigration stop.
The legal justification for stopping a vehicle is separate from the justification required to arrest its driver or passengers.
What if agents pull a driver from a vehicle and take them away?
If immigration agents stop a driver, remove that person from the vehicle and take them into custody, the legality of the encounter depends on several factors.
First, the initial stop must be legally justified. Second, an arrest must satisfy the applicable legal requirements.
A separate federal court order issued in September restricted certain warrantless civil immigration arrests, requiring agents to assess whether a person was likely to escape before a warrant could be obtained.
Under that order, agents must document the individualized facts supporting the required escape-risk determination when making a covered warrantless arrest.
Simply being suspected of violating immigration law does not automatically establish that someone is likely to escape.
Neither ruling automatically prohibits agents from stopping vehicles or making arrests.
If agents leave a detained person's vehicle behind, the October injunction does not specifically determine who must move, secure or retrieve it.
A vehicle left blocking traffic may create a public-safety hazard in which those documenting can call police to remedy the hazard. The handling of that vehicle is a separate question from whether the immigration detention itself was lawful.
What about workers at car washes, construction sites or outside businesses?
The ruling applies to covered immigration detentions regardless of whether someone is walking on a sidewalk, waiting for work or standing outside a business.
Agents cannot use a person's apparent Latino ethnicity and working-class status alone to justify a detention.
However, the order does not prohibit immigration enforcement at workplaces or other public locations.
Immigration agents may generally enter areas of a business that are open to the public, subject to applicable law. Entering nonpublic areas generally requires consent, a judicial warrant or another recognized legal exception.
An ICE administrative warrant is not the same as a warrant signed by a judge and generally does not, by itself, authorize entry into private areas without consent.
Similar Fourth Amendment protections apply to homes. Agents generally cannot enter a home without consent, a judicial warrant or a recognized legal exception.
The October injunction concerns discriminatory immigration stops and does not replace the separate constitutional rules governing entry and searches.
Didn't the Supreme Court previously allow these stops?
In September 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily suspended an earlier order that restricted immigration stops based on characteristics including ethnicity, language, occupation and location.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a separate concurring opinion suggesting that apparent ethnicity could be considered alongside other circumstances when evaluating reasonable suspicion.
But the Supreme Court did not issue a final ruling declaring racial profiling constitutional.
The court's decision temporarily removed the earlier restrictions while the litigation continued.
Since then, attorneys challenging the government's practices obtained additional evidence, including body-camera footage and internal communications among immigration agents.
Judge Frimpong determined that the new evidence and legal arguments supported another preliminary injunction.
The new ruling again places restrictions on the government's immigration enforcement practices, although those restrictions are now being challenged on appeal.
What rights do residents have?
Constitutional protections against unreasonable detentions apply to citizens and noncitizens.
People approached by immigration agents may ask whether they are free to leave. If the encounter is voluntary, they may calmly walk away.
Individuals generally have the right to remain silent and decline consent to certain searches, although specific legal obligations and exceptions can apply depending on the circumstances.
People should not physically resist officers, provide false information or interfere with an enforcement operation.
Residents who witness a stop may generally record officers performing their duties in public from a safe location, provided they do not interfere with law enforcement activity.
Anyone who believes they were unlawfully detained can preserve evidence of the encounter, including the time, location, agency involved and available recordings, and seek legal assistance.
The new injunction may provide an additional legal basis for challenging discriminatory immigration stops, but whether a particular encounter violates the order depends on its circumstances.
What happens next?
The Trump administration has appealed the new injunction to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The appeals court could leave the restrictions in place, modify them or temporarily suspend them while reviewing the case.
The government could also seek emergency intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court, which suspended an earlier order restricting immigration stops in September 2025.
That earlier intervention does not automatically invalidate the new injunction, which the district court issued after considering additional evidence.
The appeal also does not automatically stop the order from taking effect. Unless a court grants a stay, covered federal immigration agents remain subject to the injunction.
The ACLU of Southern California, which represents plaintiffs in the case, has said attorneys intend to monitor whether federal immigration authorities comply with the ruling.
The underlying lawsuit will continue, and the courts have not yet reached a final determination on whether the government maintained the alleged unlawful policy.
For Santa Ana residents, the ruling provides a new court-ordered restriction on discriminatory immigration stops, but it does not guarantee that enforcement operations will end or that unlawful encounters cannot occur.
