A federal judge in Los Angeles finds “a mountain of evidence” to support the claim that federal agents are arresting Southern Californians based on their race, accents, or the work they’re engaged in.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
A possible pause now in President Trump’s mass deportation campaign in Southern California. A federal judge in Los Angeles says that immigration agents have been arresting people illegally, often based just on the color of their skin. She ordered them to stop. NPR’s Adrian Florido is in Los Angeles. Adrian, thanks for being with us.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Good morning, Scott. Thank you.
SIMON: Give us more detail, please, about this ruling and the lawsuit that led to it.
FLORIDO: Well, the lawsuit was filed by the ACLU, Public Counsel and other legal advocacy groups this week, and they alleged that ICE and Border Patrol agents patrolling the streets have been detaining and arresting people here in Southern California based on the color of their skin, their accents, or just because they’re doing work that immigrants commonly do. And what this federal judge, Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, said in her order last night was that the evidence the lawyers submitted to support this claim of widespread racial profiling is very strong. And she ruled that agents are arresting people illegally, likely violating constitutional rights, and she ordered them to stop.
SIMON: The evidence that you mentioned, what does it show immigration agents have been doing in Los Angeles?
FLORIDO: Well, a lot of it comes from bystander videos and news reports. Agents, often armed, wearing plain clothes and masks, are showing up at places where Latino workers are known to gather – places like car washes, Home Depot, parking lots, corners where street vendors sell food. And they’re just rounding people up. And Mohammad Tajsar of the ACLU spoke outside the federal courthouse in LA on Thursday after a hearing in this case.
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MOHAMMAD TAJSAR: What’s happening out here in these streets is if you’re brown and you happen to come into contact with these ICE agents and these Border Patrol agents, they will come for you.
SIMON: Adrian, what does U.S. law say about when immigration agents can stop or arrest someone they just happen to come across in public?
FLORIDO: Well, they can arrest someone without a warrant in public, but they have to have what’s called reasonable suspicion that they’re in the country illegally, and a person’s appearance on its own is not enough. In this case, lawyers submitted sworn declarations from five plaintiffs – Latino men who were suddenly approached for no apparent reason and detained or arrested. Three were waiting at a bus stop. One was working at a car wash. Another was fixing his car at a private tow yard. Two of these men are U.S. citizens, and all five said that they think agents stopped them just because they look Latino.
SIMON: I do not imagine that’s something that the government would admit to.
FLORIDO: No. The government says that its immigration agents don’t pick people up based on race. In court this week, a Justice Department lawyer said that agents are trained to consider a lot of different factors when deciding whether to detain or arrest someone who might be an immigrant without legal status. For example, if a person gets nervous or tries to flee when they see an agent, an agent might consider that suspicious. The government lawyer told the judge in this case that immigration agents follow the law. And after the judge’s ruling last night, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said in a statement that the judge is, quote, “undermining the will of the American people.”
SIMON: Adrian, what does the ruling mean for the government?
FLORIDO: Well, the judge – she issued two temporary restraining orders that apply only in LA and nearby counties. One of these TROs requires the government to stop conducting suspicionless arrests, and the other requires it to give people arrested access to lawyers. Mark Rosenbaum is with Public Counsel. He’s one of the lawyers in this case.
MARK ROSENBAUM: They’re going to have to completely change the sort of tactics that they’re using. No more racial profiling. No more using the color of an individual’s skin as a basis to take them in. No more denying them access to lawyers if they’re going to bring proceedings against them. It really means a 180-degree switch.
FLORIDO: A big question is how quickly, if at all, we will notice a change in the government’s immigration enforcement operations out in the streets here in Southern California. It’s something that a lot of people are going to be paying attention to.
SIMON: NPR’s Adrian Florido in Los Angeles. Adrian, thanks so much for being with us.
FLORIDO: Thank you, Scott.
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