Legal experts were aghast Monday at a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows immigration agents to continue using racial profiling to stop and detain suspected undocumented migrants.
The court's conservative majority issued a decision without explanation blocking a federal judge's ruling that restricted federal agents' ability to carry out "roving patrols" in the Los Angeles area in response to an emergency request filed by President Donald Trump's administration, drawing a furious dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
“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,” she wrote.
The liberal justice argued the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which protects against unlawful searches and seizures, should apply to everyone.
"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," Sotomayor wrote.
The conservative majority did not explain the decision, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a separate opinion casting doubt on whether a constitutional violation occurred in the challenges to the Trump mass deportation policy.
"Especially in an immigration case like this one, it is also important to stress the proper role of the Judiciary," he wrote. "The Judiciary does not set immigration policy or decide enforcement priorities."
Legal experts, historians and others lambasted Kavanaugh and the rest of the conservative majority.
"License for racial profiling on the basis of people speaking Spanish and with Kavanaugh saying ethnicity can be a 'relevant factor' in immigration stops," posted immigration advocate Thomas Kennedy. "Insane."
"SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in a college applicant's file is blatantly unconstitutional," said Steven Mazie, Supreme Court correspondent for The Economist. "ALSO SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in targeting whom to detain and deport is cool cool cool."
"The Supreme Court today gives Trump a license to engage in racial profiling, with Justice Kavanaugh writing in concurrence to expressly endorse ICE and Border Patrol targeting any Latinos they observe in Los Angeles speaking Spanish and then demanding their papers," added Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.
"Only Justice Kavanaugh even bothers to write anything to justify this horrifying action," said legal blogger Chris Geidner. "And it is not in any way reassuring."
"Justice Kavanaugh agrees with the America Trump wants to create: One in which all brown people have to walk around with citizenship proof on them at all times, for when there is the inevitable 'papers please' stop," agreed X user Jeremy Wilcox. "This is bleak stuff."
"Justice Kavanaugh writes that ICE agents can use 'apparent ethnicity' and language spoken as a factor when deciding to detain people," added NPR correspondent Tom Dreisbeck. "That could have profound effects on Los Angeles County, where most people are non-white and most speak a language other than English at home."
"The high court’s majority offered no explanation for its decision to green light racial profiling nationwide," opined David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. "This is catastrophic for our freedoms and the lawlessness is bound to result in many illegal detentions of Americans and inevitably lead to violence."
"This is one good illustration why diversity on the court matters: Sotomayor can imagine a version of the world where this ruling would affect a younger version of herself, her family and people that look like her. Kavanaugh cannot," wrote University of Michigan professor Dan Moynihan.
"In her dissent today in the case over whether roving patrols of ICE agents in L.A. were stopping & detaining people without reasonable suspicion (Pedro Vasquez Perdomo case), Justice Sotomayor (joined by Kagan & Jackson) twice omitted the word 'respectfully' from her 'I dissent's," noted legal analyst Roger Parloff.
