On Tuesday, August 12, 2025, lawyers representing immigrants’ rights groups, U.S. citizens, and undocumented immigrants filed amicus briefs in opposition to the Trump administration’s request to override a U.S. District Court’s temporary restraining order related to immigration stops in Los Angeles and central California.
U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong granted the temporary restraining order. The order prohibits U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from making immigration stops without reasonable suspicion that the stopped person is within the country in violation of U.S. immigration law, in breach of the Fourth Amendment. The order prevents government agents from “relying solely on traits like race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or accented English, where a person happens to be, and the type of work a person does.” The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the temporary restraining order upon appeal.
The Trump administration filed an application with the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the order on Thursday, August 7, 2025. That application argues that the government is likely to succeed on the merits since: (1) “[R]espondents lack standing to seek injunctive relief;” (2) “[t]he district court grossly misapplied the Fourth Amendment;” and (3) “[t]he Central District-wide injunction vastly exceeds the district court’s equitable powers.” The application further contends that the remaining stay factors (whether the Supreme Court would likely grant certiorari; whether the district court’s order inflicts irreparable harm to the government; and whether the balance of equities weighs in the government’s favor) support relief. Finally, the application claims an administrative stay is warranted since “law-enforcement officers throughout the most populous district in the country are laboring under the threat of judicial contempt, daunted by the prospect that their good-faith efforts. . . will be retrospectively deemed to violate a far-reaching, unlawful, and ill-defined injunction.”
The amicus briefs, generally, contend that the Trump administration is unlikely to prevail on the merits. One such brief argues that (1) the plaintiffs have standing in light of the substantial, imminent risk of continued seizures; (2) Judge Frimpong correctly applied the Fourth Amendment; and (3) the temporary restraining order is needed to provide the plaintiffs complete relief. The brief further states that the Supreme Court is not likely to grant certiorari and that the government has not established any irreparable harm. The brief argues that if Fourth Amendment “injunctions were unavailable, the public would have little recourse against broad-scale government abuses of law-enforcement authority.” The amicus brief states that “[t]he district court’s tailored TRO is the only way to prevent the government from persisting in its unconstitutional raids while the preliminary-injunction is pending, and this Court should not disturb the status quo with a stay.”
Additional Reading
Groups ask Supreme Court to keep in place district court ruling barring immigration stops, SCOTUSblog (August 12, 2025)
Docket in Kristi Noem, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, et al. v. Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, et al., Supreme Court of the United States
Application to Stay the Order Issued by the United States District Court for the Central District of California and Request for an Immediate Administrative Stay
Brief in Opposition to Application
Photo Credit: Matt Gush / Shutterstock.com