Trump Administration Appeals Totally Improper Ruling by Rogue California Judge to Supreme Court
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to step in and set aside what appear to be restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the Los Angeles area. In July, a federal judge imposed sweeping restrictions on the standards ICE agents could use to establish "reasonable suspicion" to stop and question suspected illegals.
U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong's ruling created a system where factors such as race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or accented English, presence at a particular location, such as a day laborer or agricultural site, or performing a specific type of work were NOT allowed to be considered for "reasonable suspicion" purposes.
The Trump administration appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The appeal was heard by Judges Marsha S. Berzon (Clinton), Jennifer Sung (Biden), and Ronald M. Gould (Clinton), and they ruled pretty much as one would anticipate based on their political patrons.
“If, as Defendants suggest, they are not conducting stops that lack reasonable suspicion, they can hardly claim to be irreparably harmed by an injunction aimed at preventing a subset of stops not supported by reasonable suspicion,” the panel wrote.
The ruling leaves in place a temporary restraining order barring masked and heavily armed agents from snatching people off the streets of Southern California without first establishing reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.
Under the 4th Amendment, reasonable suspicion cannot be based solely on race, ethnicity, language, location or employment, either alone or in combination, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong of Los Angeles wrote in her original order.
The idea that location and activity can't be combined to produce suspicion is patently stupid, as this clip from the 1971 epic Clint Eastwood movie, Dirty Harry, will demonstrate:
To paraphrase, "If I encounter guys speaking Spanish while hanging out in a Home Depot parking lot looking for day labor gigs, I don't think they are applying to UCLA's Medical School." The same would have applied 70 years ago to observing some goomba taking a cash payment from a restaurant owner.
Friday, the administration took its case to the Supreme Court with a brief that emphasizes the utter lawlessness of the district court's ruling.
The Limitations are Unconstitutional
The idea that a judge can eliminate elements from the definition of reasonable suspicion is not only mind-blowingly stupid, but the Supreme Court has rejected it.
That framework narrows reasonable suspicion through the sort of “overlay of a categorical scheme on the general reasonableness analysis” that this Court has consistently rejected. United States v. Banks, 540 U.S. 31, 42 (2003); see United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266 (2002). The lower courts’ approach also ignores the relevant factual context: in a District where about 10 percent of all residents are illegal aliens, reasonable suspicion to stop suspected illegal aliens will necessarily encompass a reasonably broad profile. The result is a self-contradictory injunction: the lower courts found standing based on the supposedly concrete likelihood that respondents—out of millions—might be stopped on impermissible grounds, yet refused to find reasonable suspicion because these grounds describe far too many people.
The Injunction Contradicts Supreme Court Orders
In the June 2025 case of CASA vs. Trump, the Supreme Court dealt with the issue of illegally overbroad stays issued by federal judges; see Big: Supreme Court Rules on Nationwide Injunctions in Birthright Citizenship Cases. As my colleague Susie Moore noted, "universal injunctions 'likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts.' The caveat here is that the applications are granted 'only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.'" The Los Angeles judge either didn't get the word or didn't give a rip.
On top of all that, by imposing a universal, District-wide injunction applicable to millions of people, the district court flouted this Court’s recent decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc., 145 S. Ct. 2540 (2025), prohibiting such universal injunctions. Rather than limiting relief to the named respondents, the court enjoined the government as to any detentive stops of anyone among the 20 million inhabitants of the Central Dis trict of California—whether those stops affect respondents or not.
Contempt Trap
The entire purpose of the injunction seems to be to prevent ICE operations. By ruling out the very elements most likely to create reasonable suspicion are no longer legal "alone or in combination," the judge has created the inevitability that any agent making any apprehension will be hauled into a hostile court (think J6 defendants in DC, but on meth and steroids) and charged with contempt of court. This, necessarily, will make ICE agents reluctant to apprehend even the most obvious illegals.
This injunction inflicts manifest irreparable harm on the government. The injunction wrongly brands countless lawful stops as unconstitutional, thereby ham pering a basic law-enforcement tool, while turning every single stop in the District into a potential contempt trap. No agent can confidently enforce the law and engage in routine stops when the district court may later refuse to credit that the stop re flected additional, permissible factors and instead treat virtually any stop as con temptuous misconduct. And that threat—unlike respondents’ fears of future stops— is hardly speculative. The lower courts have already made clear that some obviously permissible additional factors—like law-enforcement officers’ past experience—are not additional factors at all, but fold into the four factors those courts considered in sufficient. And the district court has already ordered the government to show cause why it should not also be required to develop new policies, compel agents to undergo training, and even share records of every stop with plaintiffs’ counsel going forward.
Final Thoughts
This incident, along with the ongoing ethics complaint against Judge James Boasberg (see 'Misconduct': AG Bondi Files Official Complaint Against Anti-Trump Judge Boasberg – RedState), demonstrates that a significant portion of the judiciary is at odds with the Trump administration. There is a sizable cadre of judges who are bound neither by judicial oath nor comprehension of America's form of government. Rather, they rely upon their whims and the political winds within their preferred political movement to make decisions. We are one step away from being Pakistan unless these people are pulled up short and hard.
I think there is little doubt that Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong gets smacked down by at least a 6-3 decision. But the fact that she ignored precedent and orders to stymie the enforcement of the law should be something that results in, at a minimum, impeachment, even if there is no conviction. Right now, these judges are acting outside the bounds of law and tradition because there is no penalty for violating centuries-old norms or Supreme Court diktat. If the left can go after Department of Justice lawyers for representing the government (see Shadowy Nonprofit Files Attacks on Government Lawyers Defending the Administration – RedState), then the Department of Justice should begin filing ethics complaints against judges who seem more determined to resist Trump than do their jobs.
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