Supreme Court Finally Derails – A Black Day for Civil Rights

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for new, large-scale immigration raids in Los Angeles – a step that deeply infringes on the civil rights of millions of people. By a vote of six to three, the conservative-dominated court lifted the order of federal judge Maame E. Frimpong, who since July had significantly restricted the actions of ICE patrols in the metropolis. Frimpong had spoken of a “mountain of evidence” showing that the immigration authorities’ “roving patrols” in Los Angeles were stopping people arbitrarily – including US citizens. She had prohibited the authorities from checking people solely based on skin color, accent, place of stay or occupation. That protective shield is now gone. The Supreme Court followed the Justice Department’s argument that the order unlawfully restricted the ability of the officers to act and threatened them with sanctions even if they had additional grounds for suspicion.

The decision comes at a time when the Trump administration is enforcing its immigration policy with full force: The National Guard is stationed in the capital, Marines are supporting deportation operations, and ICE is once again carrying out daily raids in the Los Angeles area. One notorious operation took place in August, when agents jumped out of the back of a rented moving truck and overpowered workers in a Home Depot parking lot – a scene that has since gone viral and confirmed many people’s fears of government arbitrariness. The three liberal justices, led by Sonia Sotomayor, warned in their dissenting opinion of a massive erosion of the Fourth Amendment. “Countless people in the Los Angeles area have already been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed – solely because of their appearance, their accent, or because they do simple work. Today the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these same humiliations,” Sotomayor wrote. Her words read like an indictment of her own court, yet the majority of the justices were not swayed.

This reshaping of the court is closely tied to one name: Mitch McConnell. The longtime Republican Senate Majority Leader used every procedural loophole to permanently shift the Supreme Court to the right. In 2016 he blocked the nomination of Merrick Garland, Barack Obama’s moderate candidate, arguing that it was an election year – a decision that went down in history as an unprecedented power grab. Four years later, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, he pushed through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett at record speed – and gave conservatives a solid 6–3 majority. McConnell never made a secret of his goal: it was about locking in the court’s ideological direction for a generation. With this majority, not only were abortion rights overturned, but now also the protective mechanisms against racially motivated raids in Los Angeles have been dismantled. But individual justices are increasingly coming under personal scrutiny as well. Two cases stand out: Clarence Thomas has enjoyed luxury vacations on the yacht and private jet of Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow for decades – without disclosing them as gifts. These and other undeclared benefits add up to more than four million dollars over two decades. Samuel Alito also made headlines after accepting an invitation to an exclusive luxury trip with hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer – including deep-sea fishing in Alaska. Instead of remorse, Alito showed open defiance and published a justification article in the Wall Street Journal.

Although an ethics code for the justices was introduced in 2023, it is toothless: the justices police themselves, there are no sanctions. This leaves the impression that those who are supposed to guard the Constitution exempt themselves from elementary rules of transparency. A court whose members make headlines with luxury trips, stock deals and million-dollar gifts loses all moral authority when, in the same breath, it strips millions of people in Los Angeles of fundamental rights. The plaintiffs, a coalition of immigration rights groups, do not intend to accept this. They emphasize that the actual lawsuit will now continue in California and that they will keep fighting to ensure that federal authorities may not detain people without specific suspicion. “Numerous US citizens and people with valid status have already been victims of assaults, many have been injured, at least two ended up in detention,” their statement said. But the decision from Washington is more than just a legal blow: it is a political signal. Los Angeles, a city with nearly 20 million people in its metropolitan region, almost half of them of Hispanic origin, has been a flashpoint in the confrontation between sanctuary policy and deterrence strategy for years.

See also: The Broken City: Los Angeles in June 2025 – A journalistic review after weeks of investigation at: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/die-zerbrochene-stadt-los-angeles-im-juni-2025-eine-journalistische-aufarbeitung-nach-wochenlangen-recherchen/

With this ruling, the barrel may finally overflow. Anger is already growing over raids that resemble images of war. If ICE continues to escalate, Los Angeles risks becoming the stage for a conflict that will be difficult to contain not only legally but also socially.