The ACLU just landed another major victory against the Trump administration. This time, a judge in California has declared that ICE cannot detain someone based on their race, the language they speak, or the accent they have.
Trump has been licking his wounds, with the major legal ones coming from the ACLU. First, it was the birthright protection case, and now they have supported three men who were arrested in Pasadena while waiting for a bus. According to NBC, U.S. District Judge Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong has barred these kinds of tactics from now on.
The intrepid judge declared that immigration officers must have “reasonable suspicion” that someone who has been stopped is actually in violation of U.S. immigration law. The judge then added that regardless of immigration status, people in the United States are guaranteed the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution.
Joe Rogan was recently saying on his podcast that Trump’s targeting of migrant workers instead of the drug dealers he claimed he would go after has caused him to lose respect for the man he once endorsed. Judge Frimpong has now declared that such actions are not just disappointing but also illegal, stating, “To conduct roving patrols which identify people based upon race alone” is illegal.
Another order Judge Frimpong has now issued is that lawyers are allowed to see their clients in detention centers. It’s worth recalling that the Trump administration had even prevented lawmakers from visiting migrant detainees and went so far as to change the names of ICE detention centers to ensure detainees had no access to legal representation. Judge Frimpong has now ensured that a federal building in Los Angeles acting as a detention center allows migrants to reach their lawyers by phone.
Immigration officers have been approaching people in the Los Angeles area without showing any warrants or identifying themselves. They have been harassing random people by asking questions such as “Which hospital were you born in?” and have continued pressing specific individuals despite them showing U.S. IDs proving they are citizens. The L.A. mayor, Karen Bass, has called these tactics part of the Trump administration’s agenda of provoking fear and terror, which would certainly align with the entire alligator Alcatraz fiasco.
The U.S. attorney for the Central District of California denied any wrongdoing and took to X to assure the public that he hasn’t done anything wrong. He also added that none of the immigration officers under his tutelage have ever participated in any arrest without “proper legal justification.”
Statement in response to today’s ruling in Perdomo et al. v. Noem et al.
— U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli (@USAttyEssayli) July 12, 2025
We strongly disagree with the allegations in the lawsuit and maintain that our agents have never detained individuals without proper legal justification. Our federal agents will continue to enforce the law…
California is home to more than 10 million immigrants, the most of any state in the U.S. Trump has made very clear his disdain for the state and its leaders and has vowed to focus everything under his control on “liberating” the state from its “woke” ideologies.
However the mayor of the state’s biggest city, Mayor Bass said, “We will not be intimidated — we are making Los Angeles the example of how people who believe in American values will stand together and stand united.”
