A week ago, on Monday, July 14, the Trump administration asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to issue a stay while the government appealed the 52-page ruling handed down on Friday, July 11, by Federal Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, of the U.S. Court for the Central District of California.
Thus far, there has been no stay from the Ninth..
Perhaps, on Monday, July 21, the president’s lawyers will push the Ninth again in the hope of derailing Judge Frimpong’s highly-detailed ruling. (That is if the Epstein cloud that has many of Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters in thrall, hasn’t distracted his staff.)
In any case, in her 52-page ruling, Frimpong essentially told the president to stop violating the U.S. Constitution, which is what his immigration sweeps did over and over as federal agents repeatedly and indiscriminately arrested people across Southern California.
“The seizures at issue occurred unlawfully,” Judge Frimpong wrote.
There is, she 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 contact their lawyer.
To simplify matters, in her ruling Judge Frimpong issued two temporary restraining orders (TROs), orders that are pretty difficult for the government to misunderstand.
According to explanation put forth by the ACLU of Southern California, the first TRO prohibits immigration agents from stopping individuals without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed (probable cause). This means the first TRO can’t rely “on four factors – alone or in combination – including apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent; presence in a particular location like a bus stop, car wash, or agricultural site; or the work the person does.”
The second TRO orders the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to provide access to counsel on weekdays, weekends, and holidays for people who are detained in B-18, the federal building in downtown Los Angeles, where a large number of those arrested have been taken.
Another legal concept that would be very hard to misunderstand.
The So Cal ACLU-led lawsuit
As WLA wrote previously, earlier this month Southern California residents, workers, and advocacy groups across various industries filed a very rigorous lawsuit against the government for abducting and disappearing community members using unlawful stop and arrest practices and confining individuals at a federal building in illegal conditions while denying them access to an attorney.
Both the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles, plus an additional cluster of municipalities (including Santa Monica, Pico Rivera, Pasadena, Montebello, West Hollywood, Culver city, and Monterey Park), joined the lawsuit on behalf of their residents.
Unsurprisingly, the state of California also joined in the form of an amicus brief arguing in favor of Judge Frimpong’s TRO concerning “suspicionless” stops.
In a related response, Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, had this to say about Frimpong’s detailed ruling.
“While it does not take a federal judge to recognize that marauding bands of masked, rifle-toting goons have been violating ordinary people’s rights throughout Southern California, we are hopeful,” that the ruling, “will be a step toward accountability for the federal government’s flagrant lawlessness that we have all been witnessing.”
Supervisor Hahn joins
And….in related news, on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn is scheduled to introduce a motion to create a county ordinance prohibiting law enforcement officers from concealing their identities in Los Angeles County unincorporated areas.
“Law enforcement officers should never wear personal disguises or conceal their identities while interacting with the public in the course of their duties,” wrote Hahn and her staff. “But since the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids began in Los Angeles County on June 6, 2025, that is exactly what has been happening,”
Yep.
Here’s a link to a draft of Hahn’s proposed July 29 motion. It’s worth reading.