Supreme Court Allows Trump Admin to Continue ‘Roving’ Patrols in Southern California
“Immigration officers ‘may briefly detain’ an individual ‘for questioning’ if they have ‘a reasonable suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the person being questioned . . . is an alien illegally in the United States.’”
In a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court issued a stay on a lower court ruling that restricted ICE from conducting “roving” patrols in Southern California while the case proceeds through the courts.
I know I wrote about this case because people on both sides read the lower court’s ruling incorrectly, and it ticked me off.
I cannot find it, but I’m tired from an all-day music festival and likely overlooking it.
The lower court judge reminded the Trump administration that they needed reasonable suspicion, violating a person’s rights protected under the Fourth Amendment.
KEY PHRASE: Reasonable suspicion. Not probable cause. Reasonable suspicion.
The judge stopped immigration officers from making stops at particular locations (day labor pickup sites), the type of work, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, or their race.
The Supreme Court majority did not issue an opinion.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored a concurring opinion while Justice Sonia Sotomayor, with the other two liberal justices, penned a 20-page dissent.
Kavanaugh wrote that the Immigration and Nationality Act allows “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’ and “Immigration officers ‘may briefly detain’ an individual ‘for questioning’ if they have ‘a reasonable suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the person being questioned . . . is an alien illegally in the United States.’”
Remember how I stressed reasonable suspicion? That’s because reasonable suspicion is not the same as probable cause.
“Reasonable suspicion is a lesser requirement than probable cause and ‘considerably short’ of the preponderance of the evidence standard,” explained Kavanaugh. “Whether an officer has reasonable suspicion depends on the totality of the circumstances.”
Kavanaugh added, though: “To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors.”
You can say that reasonable suspicion is a hunch:
- Origin of Action: Reasonable suspicion is based on specific, articulable facts that suggest criminal activity might be afoot, allowing law enforcement to initiate a brief stop and question. Probable cause, however, requires more concrete evidence indicating that a crime has been committed, which can justify an arrest, search, or warrant.
- Degree of Certainty: Reasonable suspicion requires lower certainty and relies mainly on the officer’s subjective assessment and inference from the situation. Probable cause demands a higher level of certainty, where the facts would lead a reasonable person to believe that the accused party is guilty.
I’m glad Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion. It’s essential to comprehend the distinctions between legal standards and the specific requirements each standard entails.
I haven’t read the dissent yet.
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Comments
Didn’t the Obama administration allow immigration checks at every traffic stop? They didn’t care about suspicion then.
They only cared about it when it was Republican Sheriff Joe Arpaio doing it. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is still under federal conservatorship over that case. 18 years, four different sheriffs, and $300 million later, and we still can’t get rid of the federal Karen babysitters.
dems: hey dont blame us if your relatives get arrested
we be for youz
Translation:
If you’re illegal, make sure you vote Democrat!
The left wingers on the court are mostly pissed off that the others took this case. They call it a “misuse of the court’s emergency docket” not to let these cases slowly percolate for years before they reach the high court. It really puts a crimp in the left’s plan to “fight” Trump and neuter his administration through lawfare.
He cited plaintiffs lack of standing and this little gem:
The Judiciary does not set immigration policy or decide enforcement priorities.
I have not read the dissent.
The dissent will contain nothing more substantive than “Trump is a mean racist poopyhead”.
According to Orin Kerr’s summary, there’s more than that. She makes what in the abstract might seem like a reasonable case. But existing Supreme Court precedent says that given these alleged facts you can’t get an injunction.
The majority says if the government is violating the fourth amendment, it should stop. If it isn’t then good on it, and it should keep on not violating it.
I believe this is the lower court ruling..
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70594806/87/pedro-vasquez-perdomo-v-kristi-noem/
The judge that wrote this seem to think that arrest warrants are required. Crazy.
No, he asserts, based on his understanding of the evidence, that in fact ICE are stopping people without reasonable suspicion. Everyone, including ICE, agrees that they can’t do that. ICE says they aren’t, but this judge disagrees. Who’s right can only depend on a careful examination of the facts.
Where he goes off the rails is on the remedy. He could have just said “Don’t violate the fourth amendment”, but ICE says fine, we agree, but we aren’t doing that. Instead he issued an injunction against all stops of a specific kind, on the assumption that some significant number of them will be without reasonable suspicion. SCOTUS has just reminded him that he can’t do that. See Orin Kerr’s analysis that I linked in a comment below.
Under my proposed Judicial Accountability Act, the lower court judge would now be sentenced to be randomly braced on the street by police officers three to five times per week (full “hands on the hood”), under the reasonable suspicion of partisan corruption.
Make common sense great again. If a DA can indict a ham sandwich, then LE can detain someone based on ‘reasonable suspicion’.
This lawfare has got to stop.
A DA can’t indict anyone. Grand juries indict. Wachtel’s scornful comment was that grand juries are so dumb and pliable that they’ll indict a ham sandwich if the DA asks them to. But that only happens if they like the DA; as we’re seeing now, some grand juries are refusing to indict even clearly guilty people.
Some observations. From Sotomayor’s dissent, “As the District Court correctly held, the four factors—apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, location, and type of work—are “no more indicative of illegal presence in the country than of legal presence.””. If the application of these four factors results in a 50-50 proposition of success as the Court asserts, then I think that ICE is on to something, A completely random selection of individuals should result in a much smaller success rate.
One the complaints in the trial record is that an individual presented to ICE his California drivers license. The States, by allowing illegal aliens to obtain drivers licenses have corrupted the process. If the States only issued drivers licenses to people authorized to be in this country, then most innocent people could simply show their drivers license and get the matter over with..
On the other hand, it is not clear what ICE is doing to prevent repeatedly detaining the same people who are authorized in this country based on those same four factors. I hope they have figured it out. But the concurrence states that for standing, “What matters is the “reality of the threat of repeated injury,” not “subjective apprehensions.” Id., at 107, n. 8. So too here.”
Easy enough, Citizens could get STAR ID and present it when stopped by immigration officials. For those on a work visa, other visa, grant of amnesty or other temporary grant of permission to reside status they have paperwork and can carry and present it. Of course the forces opposing deportation don’t want to acknowledge that these folks have ‘documents’ or that they are supposed to present them.
authorized to be in this country is often not a permanent status for legal aliens. They apply for a renewal of their documents as early as allowed, and then INS sits on the paperwork for six months. Even if the states checked immigration status originally, they aren’t going to know that the status changed or go looking to repossess the license.
What denying licenses mostly does is normalize unlicensed driving. This is not just aliens. Michigan denied licenses to Americans owing compensation to victims of their crimes. Where I lived, it’s generally impossible to hold a job without driving to it, so an who wnted to get themselves straight with the law drove.
The cops recognized them and busted them frequently. but the jail was overcrowded so in a few days they would be released to make room for a more dangerous criminal – and the next day, they’re driving to mcdonald’s again.
Can Sotomayor be picked up and deported to anywhere? Certainly any other country would welcome her “wisdom”, Asking for a friend.
Venezuela?
Not to be that guy, but reasonable suspicion (articulable suspicion) is NOT a hunch per Terry v Ohio.
this is exactly what lefty wanted
so much confusion on the streets in the courts etc that any attempts to have civility will be tainted with subjective “proof” as the evil vs letting criminals run the streets cross the border etc
I dont want people arrested based on…they are speaking spanish ..
but here we are ,, an almost defeated country thaks to the gop not stopping lefty for all these decades and in fact helping the welfare state grow
we could/should tell the communities:
dont blame maga
you accepted the lawlessness and now our brand of lawlessness,, is teeing you off
well you cant have it both ways
No, the standard for reasonable suspicion is more than a hunch. It must be articulable, i.e. you have to be able to say exactly which facts lead you to suspect what you do. A hunch is generally not articulable; you have a strong feeling, but you can’t say exactly why you feel that way. And that’s not good enough.
And as Kavanaugh pointed out, it’s long been the law that although race or ethnicity alone is not enough for reasonable suspicion, it can be a factor.
Fourth amendment expert Orin Kerr weighs in. Worth reading.