A federal judge ruled Friday that Homeland Security’s massive operation to arrest and detain migrants in Los Angeles used illegal “roving patrols” based on racial profiling, then wrongly denied those arrested access to lawyers.
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, a Biden appointee to the court in California, said some of the arrests appeared to be more like “a kidnapping,” with officers rolling up in unmarked cop cars with tinted windows, jumping out with masks on and guns visible, and shackling and carting off their targets.
Her ruling strikes at the heart of the mass arrests Homeland Security launched last month, which sparked days of riots and prodded President Trump to federalize and deploy the National Guard.
Judge Frimpong banned the department’s agents and officers from making any immigration arrests in central California unless they first have a reasonable suspicion someone is in the country illegally.
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