(Washington) The United States Supreme Court, which is major conservative, has temporarily authorized Donald Trump immigration police to resume its targeted operations in the Los Angeles region, despite accusations of facies controls that had led to their suspension.
The Trump Administration’s Enjunction Policy has welcomed an “excellent decision”. “We do not use racial profiling,” said Tom Homan in front of the press.
This decision with potentially national repercussions was however strongly criticized by the California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom. It opens the way to “a parade of racial terror in Los Angeles”, indignant the one who seeks to impose himself as the first opponent of the president, denouncing in a press release a pass to “target the Latinos”.
The inhabitants of Latin American origin felt unfairly targeted in early June when the immigration police (ICE) multiplied the descents in the Californian megalopolis. Donald Trump then had, against the advice of the governor, deployed on the spot several thousand soldiers in the face of demonstrations, having sometimes degenerated into violence.
Many had denounced the punch operations carried out in the street by the masked agents of Ice.
Supported by various associations, three immigrants arrested at a bus stop and two Americans of Hispanic origin controlled by ICE had filed a complaint.
“Illegal immigration pronounced”
In July, a federal judge agreed to them by provisionally prohibiting arrests based on four factors, alone or combined: ethnic origin, speaking Spanish or English with a foreign accent, the profession of an individual or the fact that he is in a particular place a bus stop, a car washing, a farm or a DIY store.
Decided in the name of the fourth amendment-which requires a “reasonable suspicion” and individualized for an arrest or a excavation-this suspension had been confirmed on appeal.
ICE descents in the region have since been much rarer, without disappearing. In August, an operation in front of a DIY store had been denounced.
With its decision on Monday, the Supreme Court lifts the suspension of these operations, by six votes this of the conservative judges-confirmed three, until the court of appeal rules on the merits or it is seized.
The Court does not motivate its decision, but the conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh argued that “illegal immigration is particularly pronounced in the Los Angeles region”, with a proportion of immigrants in an irregular situation estimated at 10 % of the population.
“Racism with a badge”
“When Ice stopped me, they never showed me a mandate or explained why. I was treated as if I was worth nothing: locked up, in the cold, hungry and without a lawyer. And now the Supreme Court says it’s normal? “Reacted Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, one of the immigrants who filed a complaint.
“It is not justice. It is racism with a badge, “he said, quoted in a press release from ACLU, one of the associations that supported it.
For her part, judge Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latin American appointed to the Supreme Court, expressed her deep disagreement.
“We should not have to live in a country where the government can arrest anyone who has a Latin appearance, speaks Spanish and seems to have a low-wage job,” she wrote, reproaching her conservative colleagues for creating “a second-class citizen”.
Immigration, including clandestine, provides an essential workforce in the American agricultural sector: 42 % of agricultural workers have no authorization to work in the United States, according to a study by the Ministry of Agriculture of 2022.
On X, the Ministry of Internal Security announced that the immigration police would “continue to flood the area in Los Angeles”.
