Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
In this Central District of California action, five individuals and three organizations sought a preliminary injunction against what they called a Racially Based Stops Policy. They alleged that federal officers conducting immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area detained people because they appeared Latino or Latino and working class, without first making an individualized reasonable-suspicion determination. Twenty-one cities and Los Angeles County sought to join the motion. The Government denied both the policy and constitutional violations.
The court reviewed declarations from detainees and observers, officer depositions, arrest narratives, video, and other evidence. It described targeted operations, targeted-area operations, and roving patrols, including arrests of people who were not identified targets. It found that officers often detained people before asking identifying questions, sometimes disregarded proof of citizenship or lawful status, and used “day laborer” inconsistently as a proxy for working-class Latino appearance. The Government supplied little evidence contradicting the detainee accounts or demonstrating reasonable suspicion for those stops.
The amended order, filed October 23, 2026 as Document 823 in No. 2:25-cv-05605-MEMF-SP, made limited corrections to the original order. The original had been filed under seal while the parties addressed redactions; the court ultimately required one redaction. The decision concerns preliminary relief, not a final adjudication of whether the Government actually maintained an unlawful policy. A separate class-certification motion remained for another order.
The Court’s Holding
The court granted the intervenors’ joinder and granted the Stop/Arrest Plaintiffs’ motion in part. It found plaintiffs likely to prove an unwritten, officially sanctioned policy of detaining people because of apparent Latino identity or Latino and working-class appearance. Under binding Ninth Circuit law, those broad characteristics did not supply particularized reasonable suspicion. The policy therefore likely violated the Fourth Amendment. Because it used an explicit racial classification, strict scrutiny applied, and the Government offered no compelling justification, making a Fifth Amendment equal-protection violation likely as well.
The individual plaintiffs established standing through past detentions, continued exposure to the challenged practices, and the officially sanctioned pattern; the organizations also satisfied associational-standing requirements. Intervenors seeking the same relief need not independently establish standing. All four Winter factors favored relief: likely constitutional violations, irreparable harm from continued exposure to unlawful detention, and equities and public interests that did not protect unlawful enforcement. The court rejected arguments that section 1252(f)(1) barred the injunction or that it was an impermissible universal injunction, explaining that district-wide relief was necessary when officers stopped people before learning their identities.
The injunction prohibits detentive stops in the district based on racial stereotyping rather than pre-stop individualized reasonable suspicion, except at ports of entry, checkpoints, or functional border equivalents. It also bars reliance solely on apparent low-income or working-class and Latino status, including when an identified target shares that description. The court refused to prohibit every use of race, declined unjustified documentation and monthly reporting requirements without prejudice, determined under Rule 65(c) that no security is needed because defendants supplied no damages evidence, and denied the fourteen-day stay because the Government failed to meet the extraordinary stay standard.
Key Takeaways
- The ruling is preliminary and does not finally decide whether the Government maintained an unlawful policy.
- The court treated apparent Latino identity and working-class appearance, alone or together, as an unlawfully broad substitute for individualized reasonable suspicion.
- Official sanction could be shown through an unwritten pattern and supervisory approval rather than an express written directive.
- District-wide relief was considered necessary because identity-independent stops could not practicably be limited to a list of named plaintiffs.
- The court narrowed the requested injunction and left open a renewed request for documentation or reporting requirements if circumstances changed.
Why It Matters
The order distinguishes lawful immigration enforcement from enforcement based on demographic profiles. It does not prohibit investigative stops generally; it requires particularized suspicion and preserves the possibility that race may be considered in some properly supported circumstances. It also explains why an unreasoned Supreme Court stay and a single justice’s concurrence did not displace binding Ninth Circuit precedent.
The decision combines constitutional review with detailed limits on equitable relief. It addresses standing anew at the preliminary-injunction stage, rejects statutory-preclusion and universality objections, denies reporting and stay requests on their respective showings, and requires no Rule 65(c) security. The denied reporting request was expressly without prejudice, while class certification and the ultimate merits remained unresolved.