A judge barred ICE from stopping people for looking Latino.

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ordered immigration agents to stop detaining people across seven Southern California counties just because they look Latino and working class. She found the workers who sued will likely prove agents have been doing exactly that.

U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong signed the preliminary injunction on Oct. 23 in Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin in the Central District of California. It became public on Oct. 29. A preliminary injunction is a court order that holds while the case goes on, before any final verdict. This one covers Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Stops at ports of entry, checkpoints and their border equivalents are exempt.

What the order requires

Agents now need reasonable suspicion about the specific person before they detain anyone for immigration enforcement. Reasonable suspicion means concrete facts pointing at that person, not a hunch about a group. Under the order, an agent "must consider the totality of circumstances" and "may not rely solely on apparent status as low-income or working-class and Latino, even when an identified target is allegedly low-income or working-class and Latino."

Frimpong found the plaintiffs "will likely be able to prove" a policy of stopping people in Los Angeles for appearing Latino, or Latino and working class. Such a policy, she wrote, "would violate the Constitution in multiple ways": the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable seizures and the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee. She also noted that "this Order is not a final decision on whether the Government is, in fact, following an unlawful policy."

"I call them illegal aliens"

The plaintiffs are workers and the groups that represent them: five Latino men stopped by agents, the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, the United Farm Workers and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. The ACLU of Southern California and Public Counsel are among their lawyers.

Much of the evidence came from the government's own records. The order describes a Whittier car wash raided on June 18, 2025, after agents ran a Google search for nearby car washes, and agents swarming a Home Depot and a neighboring gas station. It cites a May 31, 2025 ICE directive pushing field offices to maximize arrests of "collaterals," people agents run into who weren't the target.

The court found that in agents' reports, "day laborer" was "simply a shorthand for a person who appeared to be Latino and working class," not a real job description. One deportation officer testified: "I don't call them day laborers. I call them illegal aliens."

The Los Angeles Times reported that Frimpong cited "a mountain of evidence," including body-camera video and text messages with slurs such as "tonk" and "wet," and found that "agents do not follow the law" in practice, whatever their training says.

The Supreme Court question

This is the same case the Supreme Court paused in September 2025, when it stayed (put on hold) Frimpong's earlier order without explaining why. In a concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that ethnicity, language, location and type of work, "taken together," can add up to reasonable suspicion. DHS has argued that opinion vindicated its tactics. Frimpong wrote that the unexplained stay and a single justice's concurrence don't bind her court, according to the Times. The new order rests on a far larger record built from depositions and video.

DHS answered the ruling with a statement: "Our agents are focused on protecting the American people -- not entertaining performative outrage." The statement doesn't address the evidence. A federal judge reviewed the agency's own footage, emails and testimony and found the workers likely to prove unconstitutional stops.

The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit on Oct. 28 and asked for a stay, the Times reported. DOJ lawyer August Flentje argued the order "gravely hinders the government's ability to conduct immigration stops."

What it means if you work in Southern California

For now, looking Latino, working at a car wash, or standing outside a Home Depot is not a legal reason for an agent to stop you in these seven counties. That matters for the farmworkers, day laborers, cooks and caregivers who have been stopped on their way to work in other states, and for people like the disabled U.S. citizen ICE tackled in Santa Maria, which falls inside the order's reach. It adds to a September ruling in the same case that requires agents to document flight risk before arresting someone without a warrant.

The order can still be paused on appeal, and the Supreme Court has stepped in once before. Watch for the Ninth Circuit's ruling on the stay request. If agents stop you, you have the right to stay silent and to ask whether you're free to leave. If you see a stop, record it from a safe distance, and report it to the ACLU of Southern California, which says it will monitor compliance. Here's what to do if ICE comes to your work.

Sources

• U.S. District Court, C.D. Cal.: Order Granting in Part Stop/Arrest Plaintiffs' Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin, No. 2:25-cv-05605 (Oct. 23, 2026), via ACLU of Southern California
• Los Angeles Times (via Yahoo News): 'Mountain of evidence' ICE agents discriminated against Latinos, judge says
• KESQ / City News Service: LA judge blocks suspicionless, discriminatory stops by DHS
• CalMatters: Judge: Immigration agents must stop the way they're conducting warrantless arrests
• SCOTUSblog: Roving patrols, reasonable suspicion, and Perdomo
• ACLU of Southern California: Government's Own Records Reveal Racial Profiling in Federal Immigration Stops