US Supreme Court backs Trump on aggressive immigration raids

The Supreme Court again backed US President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration approach on Monday, letting agents proceed with Southern California raids targeting people for deportation based on their race or language in a decision that a dissenting justice said makes Latinos “fair game to be seized at any time”.

The court granted a Justice Department request to put on hold a judge’s order temporarily barring agents from stopping or detaining people without “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally, by relying on race or ethnicity, or if they speak Spanish or English with an accent, among other factors. The administration quickly vowed to continue “roving patrols”.

The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices publicly dissented, directing pointed criticism at its conservative majority.

The administration “has all but declared that all Latinos, US 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”, Justice Sotomayor wrote in the dissenting opinion.

“Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent,” Sotomayor added.

03:36

Trump orders 700 Marines and 2,000 more National Guard troops to quell Los Angeles unrest

Trump orders 700 Marines and 2,000 more National Guard troops to quell Los Angeles unrest

Los Angeles-based US District Judge Maame Frimpong found on July 11 that the Trump administration’s actions likely violated the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The judge’s order applied to her court’s jurisdiction covering much of Southern California.