The Federal judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong had referred to the constitution in her injunction: the raids in Los Angeles and the surrounding area of the west coast metropolis therefore missed the protection against arbitrary arrest. The immigration authority ICE should not arrest people solely because of their ethnicity, their language or their job, the judge.
In its decision, the competent court of appeal referred to the case of the plaintiff Jason Gavidia, a US citizen born and raised in East Los Angeles, who was arrested by heavily armed officials on June 12 in front of a car workshop in Montebello. “The officials repeatedly asked Gavidia if he was an American – and they repeatedly ignored his answer ‘I am American’,” it said in the judgment. To avert an arrest, Gavidia also showed the officials his ID – and never got it back.
Hundreds of thousands of people live in Los Angeles without papers. Since Trump’s return to the White House, the city and its suburbs have therefore been the focus of his strict action against migrants announced in the election campaign. Again and again there were raids and arrests by the immigration authority. This triggered massive protests in Los Angeles. In response to the protests, Trump mobilized the national guard and soldiers in June – against the will of the California governor Gavin Newsom from the opposition Democrats.
Several people from California and interest groups such as the Civil Rights Organization American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the US Ministry of Homeland Protection because of the arrests. The government’s lawyers argued in court that the immigration authority had selected “certain types of companies” for the raids such as car washes that “probably” employed people without valid papers. The court classified this as unconstitutional.
