Noem v. Perdomo, USSC No. 25A169, 9/8/2025, Scotusblog page
SCOTUS stayed a district court’s order enjoining immigration agents from conducting stops in the Los Angeles area unless the agent has reasonable suspicion that the person stopped is within the United States in violation of immigration law.
A district court in the Central District of California enjoined immigration officers in and around Los Angeles from making investigative stops based on the following factors or combination of factors: 1) presence at particular locations such as bus stops, car washes, day laborer pickup sites, and agricultural sites; 2) the type of work one does; 3) speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent; and 4) apparent race or ethnicity. The district court held that seizures based solely on those factors likely violated the Fourth Amendment because officers may not rely solely on generalizations that would cast suspicion on large segments of the population. The Ninth Circuit denied the government’s request to stay the temporary restraining order, and the government sought a stay in SCOTUS.
In a 6-3 decision, the Court granted the government’s application and stayed the temporary restraining order pending disposition of the appeal in the Ninth Circuit and disposition of a petition for certiorari. Justice Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence explaining why the government met its burden to show a fair prospect that, if the district court’s decision were affirmed on appeal, SCOTUS would grant certiorari and reverse; and why the government would suffer irreparable harm if a stay were not granted (the factors necessary to obtain a stay).
First, Justice Kavanaugh found that the plaintiffs “likely lack Article III standing to seek a broad injunction restricting immigration officers from making these investigative stops.” (p. 4). The plaintiffs alleged they were stopped for immigration questioning without reasonable suspicion and sought to enjoin law enforcement from stopping them without reasonable suspicion in the future. Justice Kavanaugh concluded the plaintiffs “have no good basis to believe that law enforcement will stop them in the future based on the prohibited factors – and certainly no good basis for believing that any stop of the plaintiffs is imminent.” (p. 4).
On the substance of the Fourth Amendment issue, Justice Kavanaugh concluded the following totality of circumstances provided immigration agents reasonable suspicion of a person’s illegal presence in the United States: 1) the “extremely high” number of “illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area”; 2) that “those individuals tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work”; 3) that “those individuals often work in certain kinds of jobs, such as day labor, landscaping, and agriculture, and construction, that do not require paperwork”; and 4) many people illegally present in Los Angeles come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English. (p. 5). While the justice acknowledged that “ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion,” ethnicity can be a relevant factor when considered with other factors. (pp. 5-6).
Justice Kavanaugh concluded that the government established its burden to show irreparable harm because any time it is “enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable injury.” (p. 6).
In dissent, Justice Sotomayor – joined by Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson – determined the government did not demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits because “a set of facts cannot constitute reasonable suspicion if it describes a very large category of presumably innocent people.” (p. 9). The dissent noted that the factors on which the government relied to establish reasonable suspicion – apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, location, and type of work – are “no more indicative of illegal presence in the country than legal presence” and do not ‘reflect the kind of individualized inquiry the Fourth Amendment demands.” (p. 10).
The dissent also found that the plaintiffs had standing because they were likely to suffer recurrent injury. The dissent cited the government’s “systematic operation to target broad segments of the population based on race and ethnicity, language, location, and occupation” and that the government’s policy is to target given locations “again and again.” (p 14). The plaintiffs, “by doing nothing more than going to work every day, are likely to be seized by agents who are targeting their specific workplaces in accordance with the Government’s practice.” (p. 15).
The dissent concluded: “The Fourth Amendment protects every individual’s constitutional right to be free from arbitrary interference by law enforcement officers. After today, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little. Because this is unconscionably irreconcilable with our Nation’s constitutional guarantees, I dissent.” (p. 21).
Both Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Sotomayor couched their Fourth Amendment analyses as compelled by SCOTUS’s 1975 decision in Brignoni-Prince, where the Court held that immigration agents could not rely solely on the apparent Mexican ancestry of a vehicle’s occupants to establish reasonable suspicion to investigate whether the vehicle contains people illegally present in the United States. Justice Kavanaugh relied on Brignoni-Prince to support his position that ancestry, in combination with other circumstances, may provide reasonable suspicion. (pp. 5-6). While Justice Sotomayor interpreted Brignoni-Prince to establish that individualized factors are required to show reasonable suspicion because aggregate statistics are likely to result in seizing large numbers of law-abiding citizens. (p. 11).