Three immigrant-rights organizations have asked a Los Angeles federal judge to put a temporary hold on the government’s alleged illegal practice of warrantless arrests conducted as part of the Trump administration’s deportation policy, according to court papers obtained Tuesday.
The motion argues that agents continue to make arrests without first establishing that the people they arrest are likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained, as required by federal law.
Plaintiffs allege that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s policy violates both the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
A message seeking comment from a DHS representative was not immediately answered.
“Since last summer, the government has based its violent deportation machine on an illegal policy: arrest people and ask questions later,” Stephanie Padilla, staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said in a statement. “Today’s filing asks a federal judge to stop the unlawful practice now.”
According to the ACLU, the practice continues throughout Southern California even though courts in Colorado, Illinois and Washington D.C. have blocked similar warrantless arrests.
Residents, workers and advocacy groups sued the DHS last July in LA federal court alleging unconstitutional stop and detention practices based on contrived enforcement quotas.
“Federal law unequivocally requires case-by-case, fact-based determinations before civil immigration arrests can be carried out without a warrant,” said Armando Gudiño, executive director of Los Angeles Worker Center Network, a plaintiff in the case. “It does not authorize sweeping assumptions that entire communities are likely to flee, and constitutional and legal protections must be fully upheld for every person.”
The suit was originally brought by five Latino workers and three membership organizations — LAWCN, United Farm Workers, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights — as well as Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a legal services provider.
The motion for a preliminary injunction filed Monday contends that many of those arrested in illegal immigration enforcement raids are referred to by DHS as “collaterals” because they often are not identified as targets in advance of an enforcement operation, and are arrested without any warrant, according to the ACLU.