US Supreme Court allows roving LA immigration patrols

The US Supreme Court on Monday lifted an order preventing government agents from carrying out roving patrols to detain migrants in California, upholding at least for now a practice critics say amounts to racial profiling.

The decision is the latest ruling by the country's highest court in favor of President Donald Trump's increasingly hardline stance in the wake of ramped-up raids across Los Angeles and other parts of California.

The conservative majority court announced the decision in an unsigned order that gave no reasons. Its three liberal members dissented. The case remains alive, however, in lower courts and could again end up before the highest court.

The ruling came after a lower court said agents must have specific reasons to arrest people, beyond their speaking Spanish or gathering in places popular with those seeking casual work, and issued an order banning the practice.

Opponents immediately slammed Monday's ruling, with California Governor Gavin Newsom saying it was a deliberate attempt to hurt the state and its diverse people.

"Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court majority just became the Grand Marshal for a parade of racial terror in Los Angeles," said Newsom.

"This isn’t about enforcing immigration laws — it’s about targeting Latinos and anyone who doesn’t look or sound like Stephen Miller’s idea of an American," he said, referring to the architect of Trump's immigration enforcement policy.

"Trump's private police force now has a green light to come after your family — and every person is now a target."

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass described the ruling as an "attack" on civil liberties.

"The rule of law used to mean something not just to us, but to the Supreme Court, but now, with the stroke of a pen, the Supreme Court has undermined the rights of millions," she said.

Earlier this year masked and heavily armed agents began targeting groups of people at home improvement stores, car washes or on farms around Los Angeles, sparking weeks of mostly peaceful protests in the city.

Critics said the raids -- which swept up a number of US citizens, as well as others in the country legally -- were bluntly aimed at anyone who appeared to be Latino or who was speaking Spanish.

Even after the stay order was issued, agents continued to push the boundaries.

In one high-profile case last month ICE agents grabbed more than a dozen people outside a Los Angeles home furnishings store in a "Trojan Horse" raid.

Agents sprang from the back of a rented moving truck in an episode filmed by embedded journalists from Fox News.

Last month a three-judge panel denied a government appeal to overturn the judge's original order, after rights groups argued that the raids appeared to be arresting people largely based on their race.

While the Supreme Court did not state reasons for its decision, one of the conservative justices, Brett Kavanaugh, wrote a concurring opinion in which he said "illegal immigration is especially pronounced in the Los Angeles area."

One of the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina named to the court, dissented.

"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.

"The Constitution does not permit the creation of such a second-class citizenship status."