The Supreme Court has given Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) approval to detain suspected illegal aliens in Los Angeles on the basis of things like language and ethnicity, overruling a Biden judge who found that using those factors constitutes illegal racial profiling.
The court was split 6-3. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for the conservative majority, which held that the lower court's restrictions went against "common sense."
“The interests of individuals who are illegally in the country in avoiding being stopped by law enforcement for questioning is ultimately an interest in evading the law,” Kavanaugh wrote. “That is not an especially weighty legal interest.”
Kavanaugh took a moment to rebuke district courts that attempt to control immigration policy, a trend that has frustrated the Trump administration a great deal.
"The Judiciary does not set immigration policy or decide enforcement priorities. It should come as no surprise that some Administrations may be more laissez-faire in enforcing immigration law, and other Administrations more strict," Kavanaugh said.
A judge appointed by President Biden, Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, had ruled in July that agents in Los Angeles may not make stops based on any combination of the following elements: ethnicity, speaking Spanish, presence at certain locations such as pick-up sites for day labor, and the type of work a person does.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Frimpong's order, but the Supreme Court reversed, finding it imposed an unreasonable burden on immigration agents.
While ethnicity cannot be the sole determining factor, Kavanaugh said agents may consider it alongside things like location, place of employment, and the ability to speak English when deciding if there is "reasonable suspicion," which is the lowest evidentiary standard in policing.
Kavanaugh noted that Los Angeles has an "extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants", and that those illegal aliens tend to work in certain jobs that do not require paperwork, such as landscaping and agriculture.
Moreover, many are from Mexico or Central America, and often do not speak English. Taken together, these circumstances establish "reasonable suspicion" of illegal presence, he said.
Kavanaugh noted that "immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of U. S. immigration enforcement for decades, across several presidential administrations," and that millions of illegal aliens entered the country during the Biden presidency alone.
"As for stops of those individuals who are legally in the country, the questioning in those circumstances is typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States,” he wrote.
Liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice on the high court, wrote a blistering dissent.
"We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job,” Sotomayor writes. “Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”
