Federal judge blocks Trump administration from making immigration arrests in Los Angeles

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Friday from making indiscriminate immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area and denying detainees the right to consult with a lawyer, dealing a temporary blow to the president’s high-profile crackdown on immigration.

The judge, in California, granted two temporary restraining orders in response to a lawsuit filed last week by immigrant advocacy groups. A fuller hearing is expected in the coming weeks, but the initial rulings represent a sharp rebuke of the tactics that federal agents have employed in and around Los Angeles during raids, which have entered their second month.

In the orders, the judge, Maame E. Frimpong of US District Court for the Central District of California, directed agents to stop racial profiling in the course of seeking out immigrants, and mandated that the federal government, which has deployed hundreds of agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies in Los Angeles County, ensure detainees have access to legal counsel.

“What the federal government would have this Court believe — in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case — is that none of this is actually happening,” the judge wrote.

She said that “roving patrols” without reasonable suspicion violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and that denying access to lawyers violated the Fifth Amendment.

The ruling remains in place for 10 days. A coalition of civil-rights group, led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the nonprofit Public Counsel, is seeking a more durable order, known as a preliminary injunction.

Los Angeles, the largest city in the largest blue state, has become the epicenter of President Donald Trump’s efforts to ramp up immigrant arrests to achieve his pledge of mass deportations. It is also about 30 per cent Latino, and home to the nation’s largest population of people living in the US illegally.

During a hearing Thursday, the judge was skeptical about the government’s assertions that it was not violating the constitutional rights of people and that agents were stopping immigrants based on “the totality of circumstances,” rather than relying on race.

In addition to ICE, which is responsible for detaining and deporting immigrants, the Trump administration has tapped the Border Patrol, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration to assist with an aggressive enforcement operation in Los Angeles, stirring days of protests last month.

Agents have arrested people at parking lots, in tow yards and on job sites like restaurants. Some encounters have been captured on bystander video, and in some instances, the arrests have appeared to be roundups of random Hispanic people by armed agents, who drive up in unmarked vehicles, in military or plain clothes, donning masks.

Mark Rosenbaum, a lawyer with Public Counsel, said, “The order reflects there is something very wrong when the federal government goes to war against an American city and ignores the Constitution.” He added, “Hopefully this ends the actions of the government rounding up car wash workers and other hardworking people like they were domestic terrorists.”