A federal judge in Los Angeles has barred immigration agents in seven Southern California counties from stopping people based only on apparent Latino ethnicity or working-class status. The Preliminary injunctionA temporary court order pausing enforcement of a rule or policy while a legal case is still being decided.See it in the glossary, signed October 23 and made public October 29, requires agents to have individualized reasonable suspicion before a detentive stop.
U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, a 2022 Biden appointee, issued the order in Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin, a suit brought in July 2025 after large-scale immigration operations across the Los Angeles area. The order covers Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
What the racial profiling order requires
Agents must weigh the totality of circumstances when forming reasonable suspicion. They may not rely solely on a person appearing to be Latino and low-income or working-class. Stops at ports of entry, checkpoints and other functional equivalents of the border are exempt.
The judge also partly certified a class, which extends the order’s protection beyond the people who filed the suit. The ruling is preliminary. It is not a final finding that the government had an unlawful policy, and the case continues.
The evidence the judge cited
Frimpong found an unwritten practice of stops based on appearance, which she described, as NPR reported, as “officially sanctioned.” The record included body camera footage, agents’ text messages containing racial slurs, and accounts from Latino U.S. citizens who said agents ignored their claims of citizenship.
Plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Public Counsel, the UC Irvine School of Law clinic and other groups, argued that roving patrols stopped people without a specific target. They spent more than a year building the record.
How this differs from the 2025 Supreme Court stay
This is the second time Frimpong has ordered limits on stops in the case. In September 2025 the Supreme Court stayed her earlier Temporary restraining orderA short-term court order that preserves the status quo until the court can decide a motion for a preliminary injunction. In federal court, one issued without notice to the other side expires within 14 days unless the court extends it for good cause or the other side consents (Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b)).See it in the glossary, allowing agents to consider apparent ethnicity together with other factors such as location and type of work. Frimpong said the new request rested on different evidence and legal arguments, including material gathered after that stay.
Government response and what comes next
DHS has denied that its agents racially profile. The administration has appealed the injunction to the Ninth Circuit, and Justice Department lawyers argue it improperly restricts immigration enforcement.
A separate motion in the same case, filed in June, challenges warrantless immigration arrests, according to the ACLU of Southern California. For related coverage, see our reports on Tennessee’s joint ICE traffic stops and the Houston ICE officer indictment.