A federal judge in Los Angeles signaled Thursday that she may soon order immigration agents to stop making warrantless arrests in the region unless they first determine that a suspect poses a genuine flight risk — a ruling that, if finalized, would mark one of the most consequential checks yet on the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign in Southern California.
U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued a tentative ruling suggesting she is prepared to require agents operating in Los Angeles and surrounding communities — home to roughly 19 million residents — to make individualized assessments of flight risk before detaining someone without a warrant. If adopted, the order would force a significant shift in how agents have carried out immigration sweeps under the administration’s mass deportation push.
Federal law dating back to 1946 permits warrantless immigration arrests only when officers have probable cause both that a person is in the country illegally and that they are likely to flee before a warrant could be secured. Courts have interpreted this to mean agents must weigh factors such as a person’s job, housing situation, family ties and length of time living in the community.
But according to court records and body-camera footage reviewed in the case, supervisors overseeing raids in Southern California and elsewhere have instead instructed agents to simply “get out and start grabbing people.” Agents have been shown detaining individuals at car washes, bus stops and other public locations without first confirming their immigration status or evaluating whether they were flight risks. Attorneys representing immigrants swept up in the raids also submitted text messages last month showing agents using racial slurs to identify potential targets, arguing this showed enforcement was based largely on the appearance of being Latino.
Should Judge Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong finalize her ruling, she would become at least the fifth federal judge nationwide — joining courts in Oregon, Colorado and Washington, D.C. — to restrict the government’s use of warrantless immigration arrests. In at least two of those cases, agents were later found to have continued the practice despite court orders barring it.
This is not the judge’s first intervention in the case. In July 2025, shortly after the Los Angeles raids began, she issued an order prohibiting agents from stopping individuals based on race, Spanish-speaking ability or type of clothing — an order the U.S. Supreme Court later put on hold. Thursday’s tentative ruling takes a different approach: rather than addressing who agents may stop, it focuses on what information they must gather before deciding to make an arrest without judicial authorization.
The latest ruling stems from a motion filed by attorneys representing immigrants detained during the Los Angeles operation, which began under then-Border Patrol leader Gregory Bovino and has continued into 2026 with less media attention but similar tactics.
Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union and Public Counsel reviewed 113 arrest reports obtained through the discovery process and found that nearly 80% either lacked any assessment of flight risk or relied on generic, copy-and-paste language. In several cases, agents cited a person’s “illegal presence in the United States,” claims that someone ran from officers, or the fact that they lived in a state with sanctuary policies as justification for skipping the warrant requirement.
In multiple instances, body-camera footage directly contradicted the written arrest narratives. During a raid at a Pomona warehouse, an agent claimed a man had been “running in the opposite direction,” but footage showed the man was not running and had limited mobility. In another case, from an August 2025 operation at a Home Depot in the Westlake district, an agent wrote that a man was “running away,” though video showed him walking toward the agent while looking at his phone.
In depositions tied to the case, federal officials defended the practice. A Border Patrol supervisor involved in the high-profile detention of three men at a Pasadena bus stop testified that a person simply acknowledging they were not a U.S. citizen was sufficient grounds for a warrantless arrest.
Newly released evidence submitted with the motion — including body-camera footage, internal text messages and directives from ICE leadership — offered additional examples of how arrests have unfolded. In one previously unreleased clip, a group of agents approach a man walking two small dogs in a parking lot. A woman nearby tells agents in Spanish that the man does have legal documentation, he simply didn’t bring it with him. When she says, “Salió a caminar sus perros” — he went out to walk his dogs — an agent responds that he doesn’t understand. Another agent tells her it’s simply “the law” and that she is welcome to file a complaint. At no point in the footage do agents ask the man where he lives, whether he has a job or whether he has family in the area — the kind of information courts have said is required before a warrantless arrest can be made.
Attorneys also raised concerns about conditions inside immigration detention facilities, arguing that poor treatment appears designed to pressure detainees into agreeing to voluntary deportation. One detainee, identified in court filings only by the initials D.V.V., said he was repeatedly pressured to sign paperwork he didn’t understand while held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County.
“I asked to see the form. The second time, the officers took me to a meeting room where a man told me they would force me to sign if I refused to sign,” he stated in a sworn declaration. “When I refused, they brought in a bigger man who said he would force me to sign. It seemed like they were trying to intimidate me.”
Another declaration described the lasting psychological toll of detention. A longtime tamale vendor who has lived in the United States for more than three decades wrote about the emotional aftermath of being held for five months at Adelanto.
“I want to be strong and move on, but I am struggling. I feel incredible sadness. I am not the same man I was before I was detained. I feel like a stranger to myself,” he wrote. “Sometimes I cannot hold in all my emotions and I just cry for a long time. At night, I can’t sleep.”
Original source: CalMatters
