In a case that began in Pasadena but which impacts Southern California, a federal court has granted a preliminary injunction stopping immigration agents from making warrantless arrests, requiring them to first obtain a warrant, unless they determine a person is likely to escape before they get one.
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“By requiring immigration agents to follow the law’s requirement to make escape risk determinations before they can arrest someone without a warrant, this court order should put an end to hundreds – if not more—of unlawful arrests that continue throughout Southern California,” said Mayra Joachin, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. “We will closely monitor compliance with this court order, and expect the federal government to abide by it.”
The ruling went into effect on Sept. 2 and applies to the Central District of California, including Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
It was unsealed Wednesday, Sept. 16.
“This is a huge win that brings meaningful protection to residents in L.A. County and the surrounding areas and makes clear that (the Department of Homeland Security) has to follow the law when it makes arrests in the community,” said Lauren Michel Wilfong, staff attorney at the Pasadena-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). “The Trump administration jettisoned federal law in order to achieve its goal of mass deportation at any cost, disappearing Angeleno community members in a matter of moments as they go about their daily lives.”
Wilfong, pointing to the sworn testimony of dozens of plaintiffs and class members who testified about their arrests, said “the court rightfully recognized that DHS is violating the law as a matter of policy.”
U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong also denied the government’s request to stay or delay the order for 14 days to give attorneys time to appeal.
Three men at a bus stop
This ruling comes from the federal case of Vasquez Perdomo vs. Mullin, a lawsuit filed in July 2025 by the ACLU of Southern California, NDLON, and other community groups challenging the aggressive immigration enforcement raids and detention practices across Los Angeles as a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
On June 18, 2025, three men, Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, Isaac Villegas Molina and Carlos Osorto, were waiting for the bus across from Winchell’s Donuts on Orange Grove Boulevard when they were surrounded by federal immigration agents in unmarked cars and detained. It was about 6 a.m. and they were on their way to Altadena to help rebuilding efforts there.
The ACLU, the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers (UFW), and Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) filed the lawsuit on behalf of the three Pasadena men, as well as two others: Jorge Hernandez Viramontes of Baldwin Park, who was questioned and detained from his job at an Orange County car wash, and Jason Brian Gavidia of East L.A., who was stopped and questioned from a tow yard in L.A. County.
A federal district court initially issued a temporary restraining order limiting certain enforcement actions. At issue was whether the government’s roving immigration patrols involved racial profiling and were based on perceived ethnicity and without probable cause.
In August 2025, the Supreme Court granted the government’s request to stay that order while litigation proceeds, allowing the challenged practices to continue, but Wilfong said it did not offer any explanation with the action.
Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers, said this allowed targeted Latino communities such as farm workers “go to work afraid they may not come home, even as they put food on all of our tables.”
A second motion focuses on suspicion-less stops and asks the court to prohibit immigration agents from stopping or detaining people because they appear to be low-income or working-class and Latino, Wilfong said.
The court has scheduled a hearing on the motion for 10 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 24, at the Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez United States Courthouse in Los Angeles.
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Wilfong said lawyers for the plaintiffs have continued working to bring out evidence and build the record for their case, including more than 80 exhibits and more than 55 sworn community declarations as well as admissions from immigration agents themselves.
They “make clear the government made a lot of statements in their filings that have been disproven in the discovery process, that we believe tells the truth about this practice and the incredible harm that suspicion-less stops are having on the L.A. community,” she said.
What is a ‘legal’ immigration arrest?
Under federal law, immigration agents may make a warrantless civil immigration arrest only when they have probable cause to believe both that a person is undocumented and that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained, Joachin said.
Immigration agents must consider the totality of circumstances known to them before making the arrest and document their analysis of escape risk when conducting warrantless arrests in the Central District. They must also stop relying on a five-page memorandum from Todd Lyons, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which suggested that merely being undocumented was sufficient as a likelihood to escape.
“Today, the community feels more protected with the court’s order that DHS’ warrantless arrests likely violate federal law. This gives them breathing room to go about their daily lives, providing for their families while continuing to demonstrate such incredible resilience in the face of the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks. We know this is but one step in the pursuit of justice, but for today, we have prevailed,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of CHIRLA.
Back to the Supreme Court?
Wilfong said the case can make its way back to the Supreme Court if the government appeals the ruling.
“The fight is absolutely worth it,” she said. “It is our duty and obligation to do what we can. The legal strategy is one piece of the puzzle. We have a constitution and we collectively need to enforce it and make sure it is respected and that it has meaning. Everyone has a role to play.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in the past, a spokesperson has said the department takes “reasonable and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law.”
The effects of the Trump administration’s promise of mass deportation and the arrest of “the worst of the worst” of undocumented immigrants is a success, according to immigration officials.
They say it fulfills campaign pledges by the president, who promised to crack down on illegal immigration.
But critics and many immigrants themselves say the crackdown is unlawful and cruel, and push back that many of those in immigration detention have no criminal conviction and that enforcement tactics are unconstitutional.
For now, Wilfong said immigrant advocates will work together to “make sure the wins we have in court is made real in the community.”
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