President Donald Trump’s legal team has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to override immigration enforcement restrictions imposed by left-wing judges in California. The emergency request targets a controversial ruling by U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, which significantly limits how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can operate in the Central District of California — home to nearly two million illegal aliens.
Trump’s Solicitor General, D. John Sauer, argued in the filing that the judge’s order unlawfully restricts federal agents from using legitimate discretion in immigration enforcement. He noted that Los Angeles and its surrounding areas now represent the nation’s largest hub for illegal immigration and that ICE officers are operating under the threat of judicial contempt merely for doing their jobs.
Sauer emphasized that common-sense indicators — such as language spoken or certain types of employment — are sometimes legitimate factors in building reasonable suspicion when enforcing immigration law. He added that no one believes such characteristics alone are always sufficient, but that courts should not strip federal agents of their ability to act based on the totality of the circumstances.
The restrictions were upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which claimed that even in combination, indicators such as speaking Spanish, working in construction, or appearing Hispanic did not constitute reasonable suspicion for immigration stops. The ruling effectively ties the hands of federal officers in a region where the illegal population is significant and growing.
Critics argue that the ruling encourages businesses to continue hiring cheap, illegal labor rather than investing in American workers and innovation. Democrats have celebrated the court-imposed limits, reinforcing their preference for a high-migration, low-wage economic model.
Trump’s administration is pushing to restore federal authority over immigration enforcement as part of its broader agenda to drive the U.S. economy toward high wages and advanced manufacturing — not continued dependency on imported labor.
