9th Circuit Slaps Down Government’s Attempt to Avoid Judge’s Temporary Restraining Order

Okay, here’s the deal.

Late last Friday, August 1, 2025, a panel of three judges from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals published a 61-page-ruling that rejected U.S. Government’s efforts to block an earlier ruling by Federal Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong of the U.S. Court for the Central District of California.

In the text of the recent ruling published by the trio of judges from the Ninth Circuit—which appears to be a carefully crafted piece of writing and research —the three judges on the panel had a lot to say about the implications that were embedded in the Trump administration’s request to ignore an important ruling by Judge Frimpong.

(In an earlier story., WLA looked at the significance of Judge Frimpong’s remarkable 52-page ruling.)

But before we examine the details of the brand new ruling by the team of judges from the Ninth, let’s take a look at how we got here.

As WLA readers may remember, on July 3, 2025, five LA County workers —supported by such organizations as The Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers (UFW), the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), Immigrant Defenders Law Center, the Southern California ACLU, and more— filed a 65-page lawsuit, which describes in detail how the Trump administration has been abducting and disappearing community members in LA County and nearby, using unlawful stop and arrest practices, going into immigrants’ work places,  and confining many of those grabbed at a federal building in illegal conditions while denying them access to attorneys, and any kind of due process.

The July 3 filing drew a pile of amicus briefs, and motivated multiple local cities of various sizes, plus the State of California, and others to sign on to the filing.

The Constitution and TROs

The next event in the journey of the July 3 lawsuit came in the form of a 52-page ruling by Federal Judge Frimpong, in which Frimpong demonstrated the importance of the Temporary Restraining Order or TRO, which the Trump administration now hopes to make vanish.

Judge Frimpong, however,  had no intention of having her ruling ignored.

For example, in order to make sure that no one misunderstood what she was ordering the president and those under his direction to do,  in the text of her ruling Frimpong asked and answered four questions, which are as follows:

May the federal government conduct immigration enforcement—even large scale immigration enforcement—in Los Angeles?  Yes it may.

Do all individuals —regardless of immigration status—share in the rights guaranteed by the Fourth and Fifth amendments? Yes they do.

Is it illegal to conduct roving patrols which identify people by race alone, aggressively question them, and then detain them without a warrant, without their consent, and without reasonable suspicion that they are without status? Yes it is.

(Editor’s note: See text of Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.)

Is it unlawful to prevent people from having access to lawyers who can help them in immigration court?  Yes it is.

(Editor’s note: And here is a link to the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which focuses on due process.)

Then, should her intent still be unclear, Judge Frimpong asked two more questions via her ruling:

“Were the individuals and organizations that brought the lawsuit that precipitated her ruling likely to succeed in proving that the federal government was indeed conducting roving patrols without reasonable suspicion, and denying access to lawyers?”

“Yes, the court decided that they would succeed.  So what should be done about the government’s actions?”

Judge Frimpong answered her last question in form of two temporary restraining orders, or TROS, which would be pretty difficult for the government to misunderstand:

First, Frimpong told the president to stop violating the U.S. Constitution, which she explained was what his immigration sweeps did over and over as federal agents repeatedly and indiscriminately arrested people across Southern California. 

A Mountain of Evidence

“The seizures at issue occurred unlawfully,” wrote Judge Frimpong.

There is, the judge continued, “a mountain of evidence” to support the claim that agents are arresting people solely based on their race, accents, or the work they’re engaged in, in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

Similarly, Frimpong ordered the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to stop carrying out immigration sweeps in which federal agents arrested people at random across Southern California without any sort of reasonable suspicion that those they arrested were in the country illegally, at which time those arrested were also reportedly denied access to counsel, when they asked to be able to contact their lawyer.

Filing with the Ninth

The Trump administration, however, ignored Judge Frimpong’s ruling.

Instead, on July 17, the Trump government filed with the Ninth Circuit asking the Ninth to slap down Judge Frimpong’s TROs.

At first the government didn’t push all that hard with the Nineth, but then they did.

The next step occurred on Monday, July 28, the day when the government and the plaintiffs argued and submitted their respective cases in San Francisco,before the team of circuit judges:  Judges Ronald M. Gould, Marsha S. Berzon, and Jennifer Sung.

Late on August 1, four days after the July 28 hearing, the three judge panel from the Ninth published their 61-page answer to the government, rejecting the government’s request, and essentially supporting the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit, and Judge Frimpong’s Temporary Restraining Orders.

Also included in 61-page filing from the Ninth are a number of accounts described by “plaintiffs,” who tell of their frightening and painful experiences having to do with the federal government’s immigration enforcement, that includes “roving patrols” that “detained individuals without reasonable suspicion, in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s safeguard against unreasonable seizures by the government.”

“Name the hospital where you were born”

The following account is one of the examples of such Constitutional violations included in the panel’s ruling.

“Plaintiff Jason Brian Gavidia is a U.S. citizen, born and raised in East Los Angeles. He lives and works in Los Angeles County. He is of Latino ethnicity, a proud Christian, and a businessman. He is also an active volunteer in his church.

He rents space from a tow yard in Montebello, CA, to work on cars. On June 12, 2025, around 4:30 p.m., he was working on his car in the tow yard when he heard someone say that immigration agents might be at the premises. Out of curiosity, he went outside to see whether agents were present.

While standing on the sidewalk outside the tow yard gate, he saw agents wearing green vests; some were carrying handguns, but at least two had military-style rifles. When Gavidia started to head back inside the tow yard, a masked agent said, “Stop right there.” 

Gavidia stopped because he is a “law-abiding citizen,” and he “felt [he] could not leave, and that the agent had stopped [him].” 

While the masked agent approached him, another “unmasked agent ran towards [him]” and questioned him, asking whether he is American. 

Gavidia told him, “I am an American.” The agent repeated the question, and Gavidia responded the same way, at least two more times.

 Then the agent asked Gavidia what hospital he was born in. 

Gavidia “calmly replied that [he] did not know.” The agent repeated the same question two more times, and each time, Gavidia explained that he did not know which hospital he was born in. At that point, “the agents forcefully pushed [him] up against the metal gated fence, put [his] hands behind [his] back, and twisted [his] arm.” 

The agent asked again, “What hospital were you born in?” Gavidia responded again that he did not know and said “East L.A.” 

He then told the agents he could show them his Real ID. 

When he showed his Real ID, an agent took it from him. They also took his phone. After about 20 minutes, they returned his phone, but they never returned his Real ID.

United Farm Workers

Another of the anecdotes that the Ninth Circuit justices mentioned in their ruling relates to the United Farm Workers of America (UFW):

The United Farm Workers of America (UFW) is the largest farm worker union in the country. As of June 2025, UFW has approximately 10,000 members, the majority of whom reside in California, including counties across the Central District. Elizabeth Strater, National Vice President of UFW, attests that the mannerin which immigration enforcement operations have been conducted—“includingby individuals hiding behind masks, who fail to identify themselves, and wearing military gear—has UFW members and staff fearing for their safety…”

Even many of those who are U.S. Citizens.

In short, the three judge panel concluded that “based on all the evidence presented, including Defendants’ evidence opposing the TRO, the district court determined that “Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in proving their factual allegations regarding Defendants’ stop and arrest practices,” that underly Judge Frimpong’s TROs—Temporary Restraining Orders.

Of course, there’s lots more to the ruling, which those who are fascinated by well-reasoned legal documents may find intriguing.

“Authoritarian horrors”

In response to the ruling from the three-judge panel, Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, had this to say:

“This decision is further confirmation that the administration’s paramilitary invasion of Los Angeles violated the Constitution and caused irreparable injury across the region,” said Tajsar. “We look forward to holding the federal government accountable for these authoritarian horrors it unleashed in Southern California, and we invite every person of conscience to join us in defending the integrity and freedom of communities of color across the country.”