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By Chris Matthews
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A federal judge has barred ICE agents from stopping people across Southern California based on racial stereotypes, citing a "mountain of evidence" that officers targeted Latino residents without reasonable suspicion.
District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong ruled that federal agents cannot detain people solely because they appear Latino or are thought to be working-class Latinos.
The injunction, issued on Oct. 23 and made public Thursday, follows a legal challenge to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in and around Los Angeles.
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Frimpong cited body-camera footage, text messages containing racial slurs and evidence of immigration agents conducting patrols without specific targets.
She wrote: "The Government's showing that it trains agents to follow the law cannot defeat the mountain of evidence that, in practice, agents do not follow the law."
The judge said the evidence suggested that agents had been stopping people based on their perceived ethnicity and socioeconomic status, potentially violating constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and discrimination.
The ruling is preliminary and does not amount to a final finding that the government maintained an unlawful policy.
The order covers Los Angeles and six surrounding counties, requiring agents to have reasonable suspicion that an individual has broken immigration laws before detaining them. Ports of entry and border checkpoints are exempt.
The Trump administration has appealed the decision.
Evidence presented to the court included footage from an immigration operation at a Home Depot in Hollywood in June 2025.
An agent was recorded saying: "There was a guy, I'm pretty sure he's wet. He was just sitting in that minivan."
Other communications showed agents using racial slurs while discussing immigration operations.
In one video, an agent said: "Yeah, just plug us in wherever you see some tonks and we'll jump out."
The court also heard accounts of Latino U.S. citizens whose attempts to establish their citizenship were disregarded.
One car wash worker said an agent refused to allow him to retrieve his passport, while other incidents involved Latino workers being detained as white people nearby were left alone.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California welcomed the ruling.
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Mohammad Tajsar, the organization's director of immigrants' rights, said: "This order recognizes that the armed goons who targeted and abducted Latino community members in Southern California were in fact simply racially profiling as many people as they could get handcuffs on."
The decision follows an earlier legal battle over immigration stops in Los Angeles.
In 2025, the Supreme Court suspended a previous order restricting agents from using factors including ethnicity, language, location and employment when making stops.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote at the time that apparent ethnicity could be considered alongside other circumstances when determining reasonable suspicion.
Frimpong said the latest case involved new evidence that had not been considered in the earlier proceedings.
The Department of Homeland Security has denied allegations of racial profiling, maintaining that its agents operate within the law.
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