Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a harsh dissent to the high court’s decision that lifted a lower court’s order and gave federal officers more leeway to conduct immigration enforcement stops in the Los Angeles area.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to stay a district court’s order that found that Department of Homeland Security officials’ reliance on factors such as race or ethnicity alone when detaining someone was “insufficient and impermissible.” The majority opinion was unsigned and offered no legal explanation.
Sotomayor said the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, should be extended to everyone in the United States and added that the decision was “unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation’s constitutional guarantees.”
“We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent,” Sotomayor wrote.
“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,” she added.
Sotomayor was the first Hispanic justice on the high court. She was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson in the dissent.
The Trump administration was barred by a lower court from carrying out immigration-related raids in the Los Angeles area based on broad criteria such as speaking Spanish or gathering at popular locations for day laborers to congregate.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the concurring opinion that he granted the administration’s stay request because a person’s ethnicity can be a “relevant factor” for federal officials to initiate immigration-related stops.
Sotomayor noted that Kavanaugh’s reasoning essentially mandated that Latinos keep documents verifying their legal status with them, as Kavanaugh did not clarify how someone can prove their citizenship or resident status.
“The Government, and now the concurrence, has all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. 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,” Sotomayor wrote.
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She also criticized the majority opinion for again issuing a major decision without explanation.
“In the last eight months, this Court’s appetite to circumvent the ordinary appellate process and weigh in on important issues has grown exponentially,” she wrote. “Its interest in explaining itself, unfortunately, has not.”