You Vote: Do you agree with the US Supreme Court decision on justifications for immigration raids?

The High Court is allowing immigration raids to continue based, in part, on race and language, placing a hold on a lower court's ruling that blocked the raids.

Published: September 8, 2025 8:33pm

Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Sonia Sotomayor on Monday wrote separate opinions on the court's ruling on the Trump administration's immigration raids in Los Angeles earlier this year.

The High Court is allowing immigration raids to continue based, in part, on race and language, placing a hold on a lower court's ruling that blocked the raids, Reuters reported

Sotomayor led the dissent on behalf of herself and the court's other two liberal Justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The judges argued the ruling was “unconscionably irreconcilable with our Nation’s constitutional guarantees."

“We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job,” Sotomayor wrote. “Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent." 

Kavanaugh indicated in his opinion, which sided with the 6-3 majority, that the government would likely win the case and that the plaintiffs likely had no legal basis to sue. He also said ethnicity alone is not a basis for stopping someone, but other circumstances could justify an immigration sweep.

Bill Essayli, U.S. Attorney for California, responded to Sotomayor's dissent, saying, "We are allowed to use those facts [language and certain work locations] to form reasonable suspicion. And we can detain people, very briefly, to figure out if they're here illegally. And if they're here legally, they'll be quickly released. And the Supreme Court acknowledged that," Essayli said Monday on Fox News

Do you agree with the US Supreme Court decision on justifications for immigration raids?

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