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By Andrew Stanton and Hannah Parry
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Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered a stinging rebuke of the Supreme Court's decision to clear the way to allow sweeping immigration operations in Los Angeles.
Why It Matters
The Supreme Court on Monday handed the Trump administration a victory on its immigration policy, overturning a lower court's ruling that had prevented federal agents from enforcing immigration operations based solely on factors such as race, job, location, or the language spoken. Critics of this policy argued that it intruded on people's civil liberties.
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Los Angeles has become a center of President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement, prompting large protests and riots over the policies earlier this summer.
The conservative majority ruled 6-3 to overturn the ruling, with Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson also joining the dissent.
What To Know
The order specifically lifted a temporary restraining order (TRO) that had been put in place following an emergency appeal by the Trump administration.
Sotomayor slammed the majority opinion as "yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket."
"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," she said. "Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent."
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She warned that 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."
The Fourth Amendment would prohibit the government from seizing individuals based on a "set of facts that 'describe[s] a very large category of presumably innocent' people," she wrote.
She also addressed a hypothetical from the government involving employers who are known to hire undocumented individuals. She wrote that it would "not rest solely on the four factors but would instead incorporate an additional probative fact."
"In any event, Operation At Large bears little resemblance to the Government's hypothetical. The Government has provided no evidence showing that its seizures were based on credible intelligence about a particular employer at a particular location," she wrote.
She dismissed the government's argument that it would "suffer irreparable harm," writing that it is, in fact, the people of Los Angeles who will suffer from the decision.
"Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor. Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities," Sotomayor wrote.
Sotomayor concluded by describing the ruling as being "unconscionably irreconcilable with our Nation's constitutional guarantees" to be "free from arbitrary interference by law officers."
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion, concluding that plaintiffs likely lack standing because they "have no good basis to believe that law enforcement will unlawfully stop them in the future based on the prohibited factors." Even if they did, however, he believed the government "has a fair prospect of succeeding on the Fourth Amendment issue."
Ethnicity alone "cannot furnish reasonable suspicion," but can be a "relevant factor" when other salient factors are present, he wrote.
"Under this Court's precedents, not to mention common sense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States. Importantly, reasonable suspicion means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status. If the person is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter. Only if the person is illegally in the United States may the stop lead to further immigration proceedings," he wrote.
No other justices penned an opinion.
What People Are Saying
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, on X: "It is not hyperbole to say that thanks to today's decision, every Latino citizen in Los Angeles should consider carrying their passport or birth certificate with them at all time. The Supreme Court has now essentially greenlit Trump's DHS demanding their papers at any point."
Attorney General Pam Bondi, on X: "In a 6-3 decision, the Court stayed an injunction that attempted to hamper ICE operations across the Los Angeles area. Now, ICE can continue carrying out roving patrols in California without judicial micromanagement. We will continue fighting and winning for @POTUS agenda in court."
What Happens Next
These patrols can resume under the Supreme Court order as Trump's immigration policies continue to face legal battles.
Update 9/8/25, 2:49 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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