The Justice Department appealed a district court ruling Monday that restricts federal immigration authorities’ ability to make arrests and stops targeting suspected illegal immigrants, accusing the lower court of violating the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on universal injunctions.
In an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, DOJ lawyers accused Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California of issuing an order last week which “threatens to hobble lawful immigration enforcement” with his order last week blocking officers from relying on apparent race, language spoken, location, or job, as sole reasons to inquire about a person’s immigration status.
The DOJ also accused the lower court judge of ignoring the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Trump v. CASA, which struck down universal injunctions from district courts as generally beyond the lower courts’ power.
“Violating the equitable principles that the [Supreme] Court articulated just weeks ago, the court enjoined the government from my detentive stops in the Central District of California without following the court’s novel rules-whether those stops affect Plaintiffs or not,” the DOJ filing said.
“The district court thought a plaintiff-specific injunction would be unworkable in this context, but CASA contains no such exception; the unworkability merely confirms the misguided nature of this type of structural remedy,” the filing added.
In its filing, the DOJ accused the district court of taking the “first step to placing federal immigration enforcement under judicial monitorship” and accused Frimpong of misunderstanding the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Justice Department asked the appeals court to stay the lower court’s order pending appeal.
The order last week in district court came after a lawsuit accused the Trump administration of unlawful, indiscriminate targeting with its immigration operations in southern California.
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Frimpong granted the injunction Friday, claiming the Trump administration had violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments with its immigration operations in the area.
If the appeals court declines to grant the Trump administration’s stay of the order, the Justice Department could seek an appeal to the Supreme Court.