A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Friday from making indiscriminate immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area and denying detainees the right to consult with a lawyer, dealing a temporary blow to the president’s high-profile crackdown on immigration.
The judge, in California, granted two temporary restraining orders in response to a lawsuit filed last week by immigrant advocacy groups. A fuller hearing is expected in the coming weeks, but the initial rulings represent a sharp rebuke of the tactics that federal agents have employed in and around Los Angeles during raids, which have entered their second month.
In the orders, the judge, Maame E. Frimpong of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, directed agents to stop racial profiling in the course of seeking out immigrants, and mandated that the federal government, which has deployed hundreds of agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies in Los Angeles County, ensure detainees have access to legal counsel.
“What the federal government would have this Court believe — in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case — is that none of this is actually happening,” the judge wrote.
She said that “roving patrols” without reasonable suspicion violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and that denying access to lawyers violated the Fifth Amendment.
The ruling remains in place for 10 days. A coalition of civil-rights group, led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the nonprofit Public Counsel, is seeking a more durable order, known as a preliminary injunction.
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