Federal judge issues stunning rebuke to Trump by blocking 'unlawful' ICE detentions in southern California amid wide scale crackdown

Daily Mail​

a day ago

A federal judge delivered a stunning rebuke to the Trump administration on Friday, halting what she described as racially-driven, unconstitutional immigration raids that have upended lives, shuttered businesses, and thrown entire communities into chaos across Southern California.
The blistering ruling stunned government attorneys and sent shockwaves through the Department of Homeland Security.
US District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong granted a temporary restraining order barring federal agents from using race, language, or vocation as justification for immigration stops.
She also ordered immediate access to legal counsel for detainees held at the notorious downtown Los Angeles facility known as 'B-18.'
The ruling marks a major legal victory for immigrant rights groups and a sharp blow to the Trump administration's hardline immigration tactics in liberal California - tactics critics have called draconian, dangerous, and politically motivated.
Mayor Karen Bass praised the decision in a scathing statement Friday afternoon, saying Angelenos were living in fear as 'masked men grab people off the street, chase working people through parking lots and march through children's summer camps.'
The court order stops ICE and CBP agents from detaining individuals based on race, Spanish-language use, or presence at sites like car washes, tow yards, bus stops, and Home Depot parking lots - all locations where hundreds of people were swept up in recent weeks.
The lawsuit, Vasquez Perdomo et al. v. Noem et al., was filed last week on behalf of several advocacy organizations, three undocumented immigrants, and two US citizens, one of whom, Latino tow truck worker Brian Gavidia, was allegedly detained despite showing valid identification.
The case was sparked by a wave of arrests across seven California counties including Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Pasadena, that immigrant rights groups described as indiscriminate and terrorizing.
Since June 6, more than 2,800 people have been detained in a massive escalation of ICE operations.
A Los Angeles Times analysis found that nearly 70 percent of those arrested had no criminal record, and more than half had never been charged with a crime.
Inside B-18, detainees were allegedly held in squalid conditions, denied food and water, and stripped of their constitutional right to an attorney.
Judge Frimpong not only ordered 24-hour legal access and confidential phone lines for those in custody, she blasted the administration's apparent lack of evidence to justify the raids.
California Governor Gavin Newsom weighed in, delivering one of the strongest rebukes yet of the Trump administration's tactics.
'Justice prevailed today - the court's decision puts a temporary stop to federal immigration officials violating people's rights and racial profiling,' Newsom said in a statement.
'Stephen Miller's immigration agenda is one of chaos, cruelty and fear. Instead of targeting the most dangerous people, federal officials have been arbitrarily detaining Americans and hardworking people, ripping families apart, and disappearing people into cruel detention to meet outrageous arrest quotas without regard to due process and constitutional rights that protect all of us from cruelty and injustice.
'That should stop now. California stands with the law, and the foundation upon which our founding fathers built this country. I call on the Trump administration to do the same.'
California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the ruling a 'critical victory' and condemned what he called the Trump administration's campaign of 'fear and division.'
Bonta led a multi-state coalition backing the plaintiffs and previously sued the Trump administration over an executive order to federalize California's National Guard.
In court, he argued that the raids were not about immigration enforcement but about punishing Los Angeles for its political opposition to Trump - citing the president's own social media post vowing to conduct 'the single largest Mass Deportation Program in history.'
Government lawyers struggled to defend the crackdown, saying agents acted lawfully and had only a few days to respond to the allegations.
DOJ attorney Sean Skedzielewski insisted that ICE agents were trained on the 4th Amendment and acted 'aboveboard', but Judge Frimpong was openly skeptical, repeatedly pressing him on the lack of specific documentation.
Declarations from DHS officials Kyle Harvick and Andre Quinones were dismissed as 'very general' and 'failing to engage with the high volume of evidence' presented by the plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs argued the raids had less to do with public safety and more to do with politics - a point echoed by several city governments that joined the lawsuit this week.
The cities of Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Montebello, and five others argued in their filing that the crackdown is a retaliation campaign, designed to make an example of Democratic strongholds.
A curbside vender sells food to day laborers waiting near a Home Depot home improvement store in hope of finding work in Los Angeles
Tajsar pointed to Gavidia's case as emblematic of the abuses. He was detained 'for no other reason than the fact that he's Latino and working at a tow yard in a Latino neighborhood,' he said.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling, but for now the restraining order remains in effect in what is a rare, stinging legal defeat for an administration that has largely succeeded in hardening the nation's immigration enforcement policies.
Community leaders are celebrating the decision but warning that the fight isn't over.
The temporary order could eventually become permanent if the plaintiffs prevail at trial - a possibility Judge Frimpong suggested is highly likely.