A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to temporarily halt immigration raids in Los Angeles and several other counties in California, after ruling in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union’s civil rights lawsuit.
“As required by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, Defendants shall be enjoined from conducting detentive stops in this District unless the agent or officer has reasonable suspicion that the person to be stopped is within the United States in violation of U.S. immigration law,” U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong wrote in her ruling.
Ah so this is another powderpuff order to be ignored. Why not just say “has concrete evidence”? Don’t want to make it too obvious the house of cards has already collapsed when they completely ignore you?
Under the law, the word “reasonable” is not the loophole that it looks like at first blush.
Reasonable suspicion requires some degree of concrete evidence, it just means it doesn’t have to be a smoking gun. For example, reasonable suspicion of stealing would be something like a person being in possession of an inexplicably large number of unopened electronics when there has just been a burglary of an electronics store nearby. They dont have to have you on camera recognizably stealing to arrest you in that circumstance.
Being black and in the vicinity of the robbed electronics store would not be something that “reasonable suspicion” covers under the law. This ruling is no different. It basically says that ICE cant just stop random brown people on the street, or conduct raids on random workplaces. They have to be looking for specific individuals for arguable reasons
None of that has mattered or will matter to the administration. It’s becoming very obvious that they decide the crime, criminals and punishment (in any order they please). Legal precedent, clear constitutional rights and established jurisdiction don’t mean anything. Whatever rulings they don’t want will be thrown out and the ones they keep will be grist for the fascist mill.
The only thing the judge can do here is release a soundbite that makes it clear the actions that continue are in violation of the court order. Legalese is not that, no matter how technically correct.
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