UPDATE, 09/16/2026:
The United States federal court for California’s Central District has granted, in part, a motion for a preliminary injunction on warrantless arrests.
The decision will impact the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo.
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong found and agreed with the plaintiffs that “deportation officers have been instructed that they may conduct warrantless arrests of individuals without consideration of the individual’s likelihood of escape.”
In order for a warrantless arrest to be legal, agents have to conduct and document a flight risk assessment. According to ACLU SoCal, about 80% of the 113 arrest records that have been reviewed lack this key escape risk assessment or largely rely on boilerplate language, referring to standardized, repetitive text used in arrest narratives.
The order granted a motion to temporarily stop warrantless raids until the whole case, Noem v Vasquez, comes to a conclusion. To be clear, it does not stop raids, but ensures that raids moving forward in California’s Central District must be conducted legally.
The motion also confirmed a class of individuals who have been affected by these warrantless raids, officially identifying them as victims of these raids and plaintiffs in this case.
The bulk of warrantless arrests occurred during Border Patrol’s “Operation at Large,” which has now mostly concluded. But we’re still seeing these warrantless arrests in the Inland Empire and take shape as “collateral arrests” by ICE agents, who frequently arrest whoever they run into when looking for a different target in other areas, including L.A. County.
This could also prevent the expansion and emphasis of this practice for the future. Even so, we will have to wait and see if ICE will comply with court orders. They have a history of ignoring them, including ignoring the previous Temporary Restraining Order in this same case last year that the Supreme Court stayed on September 8, 2025.
Nevertheless, proving that the arrests and deportations of individuals were conducted illegally can have long term repercussions, not only for future victims, but for those that have already been deported to fight and argue for their return home.
“These people think we’re going to give up, but we’re going to keep at it,” says Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), which is participating in this case. “We’re not going to just cross our arms, we’re going to keep fighting and defend our community from this administration persecuting and destroying lives. We have to get in the way of that. It’s a big win for our side. We still have the issue of equal protection of the law and racial profiling, but this is going to severely impede the manner in which they do immigration enforcement on our people.”
Everybody should be following the Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo case like it was the O.J. Simpson trial and ICE was the runaway white Bronco.
“Why?!” you ask?
It’s the biggest case challenging Trump’s historic ICE raids in Los Angeles and surrounding counties and has the power to stop them. The result of this case will have repercussions not only for immigrants, but their family, neighbors, and businesses around L.A., and potentially set a legal precedent to stop raids in other cities across the country.
Here’s everything you need to know:
WHAT IS IT?
Noem v. Perdomo is a federal case trying to put an end to a specific type of immigration arrest and strategy, the “roving patrols” where agents stop people based on four factors: their race, language, their being at a specific type of place like a bus stop or a Home Depot parking lot, and/or the job that person does, like car washer, gardener, etc. It does not and can not stop all immigration enforcement activity.
The lawyers for the case argue that the DHS’s policies are violating constitutional and federal laws.
The result of this case will have repercussions not only for every immigrant, their family, neighbors, and businesses around L.A., but potentially set a legal precedent to stop raids in other cities across the country.
WHAT'S HAPPENED?
On July 2, 2025, Noem v. Perdomo was initially filed in Los Angeles’ Federal Court, challenging the immigration raids.
On July 11, 2025, the federal Central District Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) just a month after the raids started, blocking immigration agents from conducting “roving patrols” to stop people based on race, language, or occupation.
While the TRO drastically reduced immigration enforcement activity around Southern California while it was in place, many agents continued to violate it, as lawyers have pointed out in court as the case continues. In fact, a judge in Colorado found that agents repeatedly violated a similar, court-ordered TRO in that state as well.
Alongside the TRO, the plaintiffs also successfully argued that detainees at Los Angeles’ Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), held in the infamous B18 basement holding room, should have access to their lawyers, citing the Fifth Amendment. That room is where detainees were sent before being sent to other detention centers or deported. It is known for overcrowding and allegations like holding people longer than the maximum allowed 72 hours. Lawyers and family were also alleged to be denied access to the detainees.
The TRO was eventually paused in a vote of 6 - 3 by the Supreme Court on September 8, 2025, giving birth to the “Kavanaugh Stops,” which are named after the Supreme Court judge who voted to remove the TRO and wrote in his opinion that race, language, and place of work were “reasonable factors,” if demonstrating more than just one of these factors, in determining reasonable suspicion for a roving patrol to stop a person. Kavanaugh added it would only be a “minor inconvenience” to citizens who are profiled and pulled over. This immediately brought the roving patrols back.
In a hearing on Thursday, August 13, 2026, the federal judge, through a preliminary Tentative, indicated that she was inclined to rule for the plaintiffs and issue an injunction to stop agents from conducting warrantless stops without conducting an “escape risk assessment.”
The case is taking place at the Western Division Courthouse of the Central District of California at 350 W. 1st Street.
In the “Notice of Motion and Motion for Preliminary Injunction Re: Suspicionless stops and violation of equal protection” filed by the plaintiffs on July 26, 2026, they also argue that Kavanaugh’s opinion—that the racial factors being used in “totality of circumstances” were not in fact being used that way. “But the record confirms that Defendants have, in fact, abandoned any 'totality' analysis by embracing the unlawful 'shortcut' of racial profiling," the notice reads. The plaintiffs argue that DHS is still violating the Fourth Amendment.
A final ruling on the preliminary injunction, not the whole case, is expected within the next two weeks.
THE NITTY-GRITTY
Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo is a lawsuit filed in the Central District of California (which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura) against then Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by five individual people (Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, Carlos Alexander Osorto, Isaac Villegas Molina, Jorge Hernandez Viramontes, Jason Brian Gavidia) and four organizations, as plaintiffs, which include the Los Angeles Worker Center Network (LAWCN), United Farm Workers (UFW), Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), and Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef).
The case also includes about 30 videos submitted as evidence that have been collected by community members who witnessed and documented arrests as they happened. In total, there are over 100 exhibits provided as evidence against DHS and their agents.
Lawyers in this case have submitted around 60 signed declarations they have gathered from victims currently in detention centers, released, or who have been deported. The case also includes about 30 videos submitted as evidence collected by community members who witnessed and documented arrests as they happened. In total, there are over 100 exhibits provided as evidence against DHS and their agents.
During a press conference before Thursday’s hearing, Chandra Bhatnagar, executive director for ACLU SoCal, emphasized two key points that make ICE arrests unlawful:
By law, agents must have probable cause that a person is unlawfully present, and the person is likely to escape before the agents can get a warrant. By law, these both have to be proven simultaneously, and an “escape risk assessment” must be performed during questioning and documented during the arrest.
According to ACLU SoCal, about 80% of the 113 arrest records that have been reviewed lack this key escape risk assessment or largely rely on boilerplate language, referring to standardized, repetitive text used in arrest narratives.
