Supreme Court LIFTS restrictions on Trump's immigration raids

The Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a major victory Monday, clearing the way for more aggressive immigration raids in Los Angeles.

In a 6-3 decision, the conservative majority struck down a lower court ruling that had restricted federal agents from targeting the city for deportations. The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had asked the high court to lift the July order from a California district judge that temporarily blocked raids in the region.

The decision pauses the the ruling from U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong that arrests by ICE agents were not using 'reasonable suspicion' for their arrests, but rather targeting them on race, accent, and place of work. 

The decision gives President Donald Trump more leeway as he continues his widespread effort to deport illegal immigrants from the United States.

Chief Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with Noem in the grant of the application, noting that the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes immigration officers to 'interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or to remain in the United States.'

He further noted that illegal immigrants made up about ten percent of the population in the Los Angeles region, which was a reasonable reason why it was prioritized by immigration authorities.

'Immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of U. S. immigration enforcement for decades, across several presidential administrations,' he wrote.

Kavanaugh stressed the limitations of the judiciary's ability to set immigration policy, noted that different presidents had prioritized immigration enforcement differently.

'Especially in an immigration case like this one, it is also important to stress the proper role of the Judiciary. The Judiciary does not set immigration policy or decide enforcement priorities,' he wrote.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissent arguing  that the administration's deportation effort in Los Angeles had 'likely violated' the Forth Amendment's requirements for reasonable suspicion.

She cited many examples of instances where the U.S. government was aggressively targeting illegal immigrants, arguing that law enforcement was unjustly targeting individuals by their race, place of work, and location. 

'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,' she wrote. 'Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.'