Supreme Court Says Government Can Continue to Detain People in Los Angeles Area for Now; Justice Sotomayor Dissents

On September 8, 2025, the Supreme Court granted, without explanation, an application for stay of a district court’s injunction in Noem v. Perdomo, a case that challenged immigration officers’ practice of detaining individuals in the Los Angeles area based on characteristics such as their apparent race or ethnicity, whether they spoke Spanish or English, the location where they were found (such as a car wash or bus stop), and the type of job they appeared to work. The stay means that the federal government can continue to stop and detain people under these conditions in Los Angeles while litigation continues.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred. He said there was illegal immigration in the Los Angeles area in “extraordinary numbers” and that U.S. immigration officers therefore have prioritized immigration enforcement there. “The Government sometimes makes brief investigative stops to check the immigration status of those who gather in locations where people are hired for day jobs; who work or appear to work in jobs such as construction, landscaping, agriculture, or car washes that often do not require paperwork and are therefore attractive to illegal immigrants; and who do not speak much if any English,” he said. “If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go. If the individual is illegally in the United States, the officers may arrest the individual and initiate the process for removal.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, noting that during the raids, “teams of armed and masked agents pulled up to car washes, tow yards, farms, and parks and began seizing individuals on sight, often before asking a single question,” in some cases handling people roughly and detaining them. She said people, including U.S. citizens, also were taken from Home Depots, tow yards, farms, recycling centers, churches, and parks. She noted that the federal government’s practices have intimidated people in the area and that the government is likely violating the Fourth Amendment and relying solely on generalizations that treat large segments of the population with suspicion. “The Government, and now the concurrence, has all but declared that all Latinos, U. S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.” Justice Sotomayor opined, “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. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”

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