Today marks three months to the day since the Supreme Court not only removed a temporary restraining order in the Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo case that was supposed to pause federal immigration raids based on racial profiling, but also where Justice Kavanaugh laid out the framework for how racial profiling is permissible by federal agents leading to what has now been coined as the “Kavanaugh Stop,” by professor Anil Kalhan.
Ninety days ago, on September 8th, Justice Kavanaugh wrote in the Supreme Court decision granting the official stay, in a vote of 6-3, as follows:
“To stop an individual for brief questioning about immigration status, the Government must have reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the United States . . .
Whether an officer has reasonable suspicion depends on the totality of the circumstances . . . Here, those circumstances include: That there is an extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area; that those individuals tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work; that those individuals often work in certain kinds of jobs, such as day labor, landscaping, agriculture, and construction, that do not require paperwork and are therefore especially attractive to illegal immigrants; and that many of those illegally in the Los Angeles area come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English . . .
To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a “relevant factor” when considered along with other salient factors. Id., at 887.”