A judge at the federal level strongly criticized the Trump administration on Friday, stopping what she viewed as immigration raids based on race that are unconstitutional and have caused chaos in Southern California. These raids have disrupted lives, closed businesses, and created turmoil in entire communities.

The blistering ruling stunned government attorneys and sent shockwaves through the Department of Homeland Security.

US District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order that prevents federal agents from using race, language, or job as reasons for making immigration stops.

She also ordered immediate access to legal counsel for detainees held at the notorious downtown Los Angeles facility known as ‘B-18.’

This decision is a significant win for groups advocating for immigrant rights and a serious setback for the Trump administration’s tough immigration strategies in the more liberal state of California. Critics have labeled these strategies as harsh, risky, and politically driven.

Mayor Karen Bass praised the decision in a scathing statement Friday afternoon, saying Angelenos were living in fear as ‘masked men grab people off the street, chase working people through parking lots and march through children’s summer camps.’

The court order stops ICE and CBP agents from detaining individuals based on race, Spanish-language use, or presence at sites like car washes, tow yards, bus stops, and Home Depot parking lots – all locations where hundreds of people were swept up in recent weeks.

The lawsuit, Vasquez Perdomo et al. v. Noem et al., was filed last week on behalf of several advocacy organizations, three undocumented immigrants, and two US citizens, one of whom, Latino tow truck worker Brian Gavidia, was allegedly detained despite showing valid identification.

A temporary restraining order bars federal agents from using race, language, or vocation as justification for immigration stops

Officers arrest two men after a dispersal order during a protest last month in Los Angeles

Migrant supporters attend a rally and march on Friday in Oxnard, California. The rally and march came a day after around 200 people were detained by federal officers during a raid at a cannabis farm in nearby Camarillo

US District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong granted a temporary restraining order barring federal agents from using race, language, or vocation as justification for immigration stops

The case was sparked by a wave of arrests across seven California counties including Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Pasadena, that immigrant rights groups described as indiscriminate and terrorizing.

Since June 6, more than 2,800 people have been detained in a massive escalation of ICE operations. 

A Los Angeles Times analysis found that nearly 70 percent of those arrested had no criminal record, and more than half had never been charged with a crime.

Inside B-18, detainees were allegedly held in squalid conditions, denied food and water, and stripped of their constitutional right to an attorney.

Judge Frimpong not only ordered 24-hour legal access and confidential phone lines for those in custody, she blasted the administration’s apparent lack of evidence to justify the raids.

California Governor Gavin Newsom weighed in, delivering one of the strongest rebukes yet of the Trump administration’s tactics. 

‘Justice prevailed today – the court’s decision puts a temporary stop to federal immigration officials violating people’s rights and racial profiling,’ Newsom said in a statement. 

‘Stephen Miller’s immigration agenda is one of chaos, cruelty and fear. Instead of targeting the most dangerous people, federal officials have been arbitrarily detaining Americans and hardworking people, ripping families apart, and disappearing people into cruel detention to meet outrageous arrest quotas without regard to due process and constitutional rights that protect all of us from cruelty and injustice. 

Federal agents block people protesting an ICE immigration raid at a nearby licensed cannabis farm on Thursday

National Guard members and a federal agent block people protesting an ICE immigration raid

LA Mayor Karen Bass praised the decision in a scathing statement Friday afternoon, saying Angelenos were living in fear as ‘masked men grab people off the street, chase working people through parking lots and march through children’s summer camps.’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom called President Trump ‘scum’ over the raids

‘That should stop now. California stands with the law, and the foundation upon which our founding fathers built this country. I call on the Trump administration to do the same.’ 

California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the ruling a ‘critical victory’ and condemned what he called the Trump administration’s campaign of ‘fear and division.’

Bonta led a multi-state coalition backing the plaintiffs and previously sued the Trump administration over an executive order to federalize California’s National Guard.

In court, he argued that the raids were not about immigration enforcement but about punishing Los Angeles for its political opposition to Trump – citing the president’s own social media post vowing to conduct ‘the single largest Mass Deportation Program in history.’

A man is detained as clashes break out after US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers attempted to raid a store in Bell, just south of Los Angeles last month

ICE raids across Los Angeles have driven the migrant workforce into hiding, sparking concerns over sanctuary city’s already rocky economic state

On Monday, immigration agents were spotted roaming through downtown LA (pictured). Some of them were riding horses, while others traveled on foot

Agents were seen driving through the streets in armored tanks, stopping people and asking for identification along the way (pictured)

Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has sparked concern among a significant portion of LA’s laborers – especially after a recent bout of raids (Pictured: Christian Damian Cerna-Camacho being arrested by ICE agents for allegedly punching an officer)

Government lawyers struggled to defend the crackdown, saying agents acted lawfully and had only a few days to respond to the allegations.

DOJ attorney Sean Skedzielewski insisted that ICE agents were trained on the 4th Amendment and acted ‘aboveboard’, but Judge Frimpong was openly skeptical, repeatedly pressing him on the lack of specific documentation.

Declarations from DHS officials Kyle Harvick and Andre Quinones were dismissed as ‘very general’ and ‘failing to engage with the high volume of evidence’ presented by the plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs argued the raids had less to do with public safety and more to do with politics – a point echoed by several city governments that joined the lawsuit this week.

The cities of Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Montebello, and five others argued in their filing that the crackdown is a retaliation campaign, designed to make an example of Democratic strongholds.

Liberal Los Angeles residents were outraged as ICE agents with bulletproof vests spent the Fourth of July holiday continuing to carry out Donald Trump’s mass deportation promise

Demonstrators close temporarily the Sixth Street bridge after a rally at Hollenbeck Park calling for an end to the immigration raids by ICE in Los Angeles

Hundreds of Angelenos gather to peacefully protest ICE actics that are affecting their communities during a rally in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles on July 4

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies fire a nonlethal weapon towards a man after he threw a can at them in protest against federal immigration operations near LA City Hall

A curbside vender sells food to day laborers waiting near a Home Depot home improvement store in hope of finding work in Los Angeles

One of two documented immigrants with prior convictions detained by ICE and Homeland Security agents, walks handcuffed as an agent holds his arm, at a Home Depot parking lot

U.S. Border Patrol and protesters clash after a raid was conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement near a Home Depot on June 7, 2025 in Paramount, California

Tajsar pointed to Gavidia’s case as emblematic of the abuses. He was detained ‘for no other reason than the fact that he’s Latino and working at a tow yard in a Latino neighborhood,’ he said.

The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling, but for now the restraining order remains in effect in what is a rare, stinging legal defeat for an administration that has largely succeeded in hardening the nation’s immigration enforcement policies.

Community leaders are celebrating the decision but warning that the fight isn’t over.

The temporary order could eventually become permanent if the plaintiffs prevail at trial – a possibility Judge Frimpong suggested is highly likely.