Justice Department says Central District injunction hampers federal agents’ ability to enforce immigration laws
On August 7, 2025, Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to halt a Central District of California court order that bars federal immigration agents from conducting detentive stops based solely on four factors: apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or accented English, being present at certain locations where undocumented immigrants are known to gather, and working in certain job types common among undocumented workers.
The application is a “stay request,” a type of filing used when a party wants a higher court to put a lower court’s order on hold while an appeal is underway. Such filings are often used in urgent situations where the party believes the lower court’s order will cause irreparable harm if it remains in effect. The Supreme Court can act on them quickly, sometimes within days.
The Justice Department’s filing argues that the injunction, issued July 11, 2025, in Perdomo v. Noem, violates Supreme Court precedent on standing, misapplies Fourth Amendment reasonable suspicion standards, and unlawfully imposes a district-wide restriction that covers 20 million residents, including an estimated 2 million undocumented immigrants. The Ninth Circuit declined to pause most of the order on August 1, allowing it to remain in effect until at least a preliminary injunction hearing set for September 24, 2025.
The government contends that the ruling creates a “contempt trap” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, chilling lawful enforcement and ignoring the “totality of the circumstances” approach the Supreme Court has endorsed for reasonable suspicion. Plaintiffs, five individuals and four organizations, allege a pattern of unconstitutional stops. The district court found they had standing based largely on one plaintiff’s prior stop and imposed relief covering all law enforcement engaged in immigration enforcement throughout the Central District.
We have not yet seen the plaintiffs’ response to the stay application. This means we are on the front edge of the court filings, and the Supreme Court will have both sides’ submissions before deciding whether to grant or deny the request.
Analysis
The fight here boils down to two very different ways of thinking about constitutional law and police work. On one hand, the lower courts are treating the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonable suspicion” test as if it has bright-line rules, meaning certain factors are simply off the table no matter how they appear together in real life. On the other hand, the Department of Homeland Security is arguing that the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected categorical bans like this, preferring a “totality of the circumstances” approach where any fact, such as language, location, job type, or experience, can matter depending on context.
The standing issue is just as important. The Supreme Court in past cases has said that to get an injunction, you have to show a likely risk that you will be harmed again in the same way, not just point to a policy and say it is wrong. The government is leaning on that precedent, arguing that these plaintiffs cannot prove they are actually at risk of being stopped in the future based solely on the four banned factors. Without that showing, the entire case for a broad injunction could collapse.
Then there is the scope of the order. This injunction does not just protect the named plaintiffs, it applies to 20 million people in the Central District of California. The Supreme Court recently made clear that lower courts cannot issue what it called “universal injunctions” that give relief to everyone everywhere, rather than just the parties in the case. DHS says that is exactly what happened here. If the Court agrees, it could sharply narrow the reach of the order or throw it out entirely.
What happens next will depend on whether the justices see this as an overreach by the lower courts into immigration enforcement, a field traditionally given wide leeway to the executive branch, or as a necessary protection against profiling and overbroad stops. If the Court grants the stay, agents could resume using the contested factors in combination while the case moves forward. If it denies the stay, the restrictions will stay in place at least until the September 24 hearing.
The Supreme Court could rule on the stay request at any time. If granted, it would allow ICE and CBP agents to resume considering the four enumerated factors, in combination, when forming reasonable suspicion for stops in the Los Angeles area, pending appeal.
The Supreme Court could rule on the stay request at any time. If granted, it would allow ICE and CBP agents to resume considering the four enumerated factors, in combination, when forming reasonable suspicion for stops in the Los Angeles area, pending appeal.
Tags: Supreme Court stay, immigration enforcement, Los Angeles injunction, Fourth Amendment, ICE operations
Link to court documents: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25a169.html