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The Trump administration filed a request with the courts to suspend a temporary restraining order (TRO) that was issued on Friday against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that ruled the agency likely violated constitutional protections through its immigration enforcement practices in Los Angeles.
In a 53-page order issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, a Biden appointee, barred ICE from conducting detentive stops in the Central District of California unless agents have “reasonable suspicion” that a person is in the country unlawfully.
Frimpong’s ruling explicitly prohibits ICE from relying solely on race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, location, or type of work when forming suspicion, citing the Fourth Amendment.
In its filing on Monday, the Trump administration said the lawsuit was originally filed by three individual aliens requesting to be released from immigration detention.
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“But, apparently seeking to manipulate the process of judicial assignment, the original petitioners’ counsel then filed an amended complaint adding a host of new individual and organizational plaintiffs, leveling systemic challenges to federal immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area,” the Trump administration wrote. “And a day later, on the eve of the July 4 holiday, they filed an ‘emergency’ ex parte motion asking the court to impose a straight-jacket injunction that would vastly restrict the government’s ability to stop and detain anyone on suspicion of being unlawfully present in the United States.”
The Trump administration also said the court gave them just two business days to respond to hundreds of pages of discovery.
“The result is a sweeping, district-wide injunction that threatens to bobble lawful immigration enforcement by hanging a Damocles sword of contempt over every immigration stop,” the Trump administration said. “The government seeks an immediate stay of that untenable order pending appeal, and an administrative stay in the meantime.”
The Trump administration argued that Frimpong ignored the recent Supreme Court ruling involving the president that rejects universal injunctions – the judge’s ruling on Friday was not nationwide but instead was focused on Los Angeles and the Central District of California.
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“Immediate relief is warranted here not only because of the magnitude of the court’s legal errors, but also their practical consequences for the separation of powers and the government’s sovereign prerogatives,” the filing reads. “It is untenable for a district judge to single-handedly ‘restructure the operations’ of federal immigration enforcement and usurp ‘ongoing judicial supervision of an agency normally, and properly, overseen by the executive branch.’”
Frimpong presided over a hearing Thursday where she considered granting the request that will have major implications for immigration enforcement in California, a state that has become a focal point in President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation plans.
The judge heard arguments about whether to grant the TRO against ICE over allegations the agency is violating constitutional rights during its immigration arrests.
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Frimpong said during the hearing on Thursday that she was leaning toward granting the TRO Friday.
“I think it’s important for the court not to burden otherwise lawful law enforcement activities,” the judge said.
The case was initially brought in June as a routine petition from three detainees, but it has ballooned into a weighty lawsuit challenging the way ICE operates.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, on Friday, praised the federal court’s decision to issue a temporary restraining order halting what she described as “unconstitutional and reckless raids conducted under the Trump Administration.”
She characterized the federal actions as aggressive and harmful and reaffirmed Los Angeles’ commitment to protecting its residents’ rights.
Immigration rights groups and local governments, including the cities of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Culver, and West Hollywood, have all intervened in the case and Democrat-led states have filed an amicus brief in support of them.
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The plaintiffs alleged in court papers that ICE is “indiscriminately” arresting people with “brown skin” at Home Depots, car washes, farms and more. Authorities made the arrests with no “reasonable suspicion” and sometimes mistakenly apprehended U.S. citizens in the process, all in violation of the Fourth Amendment, attorneys wrote.
The plaintiffs argued the Trump administration gave ICE an unrealistic quota of 3,000 arrests per day, causing officers to feel pressured to blow past legal requirements to achieve those numbers.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is disputing the allegations and denies wrongdoing.
Department of Justice attorneys wrote that immigration arrests, of which there have been nearly 3,000 across California since early June, have been carried out legally.
Fox News’ Ashley Oliver, Bill Melugin, Cameron Arcand, Jasmine Baehr and Stepheny Price contributed to this report.
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