by
Andrew
Harnik-Pool/Getty
Images)
On
September
8,
the
Supreme
Court
effectively
legalized
racial
profiling.
Naturally,
they
did
it
on
the
shadow
docket,
in
a
one-paragraph
order
in
which
five
of
the
six
conservative
justices
voted
to
stay
a
trial
judge’s
order
“pending
the
disposition
of
the
appeal
in
the
United
States
Court
of
Appeals
for
the
Ninth
Circuit
and
disposition
of
a
petition
for
a
writ
of
certiorari,
if
such
a
writ
is
timely
sought.”
So
far,
so
blahblahblah.
But
Justice
Kavanaugh,
likely
stinging
from
criticism
of
the
Supreme
Court’s
unexplained
shadow
docket
rulings,
took
it
upon
himself
to
explain
that
the
conservative
justices
are
very
definitely
greenlighting
racial
profiling.
Kavanaugh
imagined
a
cheerful
exchange,
wherein
ICE
agents
politely
ask
for
confirmation
of
citizenship
and
are
quickly
on
their
way.
“The
questioning
in
those
circumstances
is
typically
brief,
and
those
individuals
may
promptly
go
free
after
making
clear
to
the
immigration
officers
that
they
are
U.
S.
citizens
or
otherwise
legally
in
the
United
States,”
he
insisted,
despite
extensive
evidence
that
ICE
agents
are
tackling
every
brown
person
they
see
and
locking
up
a
lot
of
citizens
who
fail
to
“make
clear”
their
right
to
walk
down
the
street
in
a
fashion
that
satisfies
a
pack
of
glorified
bounty
hunters.
Apparently
the
Fourth
Amendment
no
longer
applies
to
“detentive
stops,”
since
all
that’s
required
for
reasonable
suspicion
of
a
crime
these
days
is
speaking
Spanish
at
Home
Depot.
So
now
plaintiffs
have
filed
a
new
lawsuit
pointing
out
that
what
ICE
is
doing
is
not,
in
fact,
briefly
detaining
people.
It’s
arresting
them,
without
probable
cause
and
illegally
holding
them
for
days
on
end.
How
will
SCOTUS
justify
that
one?
Vasquez
Perdomo
v.
Noem
The
Supreme
Court’s
racial
profiling
order
stayed
an
injunction
by
US
District
Judge
Maame
Frimpong,
who
worked
from
the
uncontroversial
premise
that
ICE
agents
cannot
detain
an
individual
without
reasonable
suspicion
that
he
committed
a
crime.
All
parties
agree
that
race
alone
cannot
form
the
basis
for
reasonable
suspicion.
But
Judge
Frimpong
disagreed
with
the
government’s
position
that
mixing
race
with
some
other
general
characteristic,
like
working
in
construction,
miraculously
transforms
it
into
a
legal
basis
for
reasonable
suspicion.
Specifically
she
barred
DHS
from
detaining
people
based
on
these
four
factors
“alone
or
in
combination”:
i.
Apparent
race
or
ethnicity;ii.
Speaking
Spanish
or
speaking
English
with
an
accent;iii.
Presence
at
a
particular
location
(e.g.
bus
stop,
car
wash,
tow
yard,
day
laborer
pick
up
site,
agricultural
site,
etc.);
oriv.
The
type
of
work
one
does
But
Justice
Kavanaugh
said
that
RACE
+
LOCATION
(OR
LAWN
MOWER)
makes
it
legal
for
ICE
to
grab
up
every
brown
person
outside
a
Home
Depot.
He
began
by
stating
as
fact
that
one
in
ten
people
in
Los
Angeles
is
an
undocumented
immigrant
and
that
immigrants
cause
“significant
economic
and
social
problems.”
He
cited
no
evidence
for
the
first,
and
the
second
is
dicta
from
a
fifty-year-old
Supreme
Court
case
called
US
v.
Brignoni-Ponce
—
fair
evidence
that
Kavanaugh
knows
he’s
building
his
house
on
a
pack
of
racist
cards.
Having
established
his
bigot
bona
fides,
he
went
on
to
reason
that
ICE
goons
need
not
have
reasonable
suspicion
that
an
individual
is
an
undocumented
immigrant;
a
mere
collection
of
demographic
probabilities
will
do
the
trick.
In
Brignoni-Ponce,
the
Court
held
that
“Driving
While
Mexican”
could
not
amount
to
reasonable
suspicion
for
a
traffic
stop
because
it
“would
subject
the
residents
of
these
and
other
areas
to
potentially
unlimited
interference
with
their
use
of
the
highways,
solely
at
the
discretion
of
Border
Patrol
officers.”
But
Kavanaugh
was
unbothered,
blithely
asserting
that,
under
“this
Court’s
precedents,
not
to
mention
common
sense,”
ICE
can
legally
stop
someone
for
being
a
Hispanic
landscaper
and
demand
proof
of
citizenship.
This
is
clearly
a
violation
of
the
Fourth
Amendment,
and
so
Kavanaugh
took
pains
to
downplay
the
interaction
as
a
mere
collegial
inquiry.
“If
the
person
is
a
U.
S.
citizen
or
otherwise
lawfully
in
the
United
States,
that
individual
will
be
free
to
go
after
the
brief
encounter,”
he
simpered.
“Only
if
the
person
is
illegally
in
the
United
States
may
the
stop
lead
to
further
immigration
proceedings.”
This
was
horseshit
when
he
wrote
it,
and
it’s
horseshit
now.
The
complaint
in
Vasquez
Perdomo
records
multiple
instances
of
ICE
physically
attacking
US
citizens
and
locking
them
up
for
hours
or
even
days.
That’s
not
a
“brief”
detention
—
it’s
an
arrest
without
anything
like
probable
cause.
Judge
Frimpong
described
Pedro
Vasquez
Perdomo,
a
US
citizen,
being
arrested
and
held
without
charge
for
at
least
two
days:
In
the
early
morning
of
June
18,
2025,
in
Pasadena,
California,
Vasquez
Perdomo
was
waiting
at
a
bus
stop
across
the
street
from
Winchell’s
Donuts
with
several
co-workers
to
be
picked
up
for
a
job.
About
four
cars
converged
on
his
location,
and
about
half
a
dozen
masked
agents
jumped
out
on
either
side
of
him.
They
had
weapons
and
masks,
and
did
not
identify
themselves.
Vasquez
Perdomo
tried
to
leave
but
was
surrounded,
grabbed,
handcuffed,
and
put
into
one
of
the
vehicles.
No
warrant
was
shown.
It
was
only
after
he
was
brought
to
a
nearby
CVS
parking
lot
that
agents
checked
Vasquez
Perdomo’s
identification.
Agents
did
not
inform
Vasquez
Perdomo
that
they
were
immigration
officers
authorized
to
make
an
arrest
or
of
the
basis
for
his
arrest.
At
the
time
this
action
was
filed,
Vasquez
Perdomo
had
been
transported
to
and
was
being
held
at
B-18.
There,
he
experienced
extremely
crowded
and
unsanitary
conditions,
was
given
little
to
eat
or
drink,
and
slept
on
the
floor.
In
fact,
hundreds
of
American
citizens
have
been
brutalized
and
arrested
in
these
supposedly
“brief
investigative
stops.”
They
include:
Army
veteran
George
Retes,
who
was
detained
in
California
for
three
days
without
being
allowed
to
speak
to
a
lawyer
or
even
take
a
shower
to
wash
off
the
pepper
spray
police
soaked
him
with
after
he
said
“I’m
a
citizen;”
19-year-old
Jose
Hermosillo,
who
was
detained
for
ten
days
in
Arizona
for
the
crime
of
walking
around
without
ID
while
Latino;
and
Illinois
man
Julio
Noriega,
who
was
cuffed
and
thrown
into
a
van
without
anyone
even
asking
about
his
citizenship,
and
only
released
ten
hours
later
after
ICE
bothered
to
look
in
Noriega’s
confiscated
wallet
and
found
his
ID.
US
citizens
have
no
obligation
to
walk
around
with
our
“papers,”
not
even
if
we
are
Hispanic
and
work
“in
certain
kinds
of
jobs,
such
as
day
labor,
landscaping,
agriculture,
and
construction,
that
do
not
require
paperwork
and
are
therefore
especially
attractive
to
illegal
immigrants,”
as
Justice
Kavanaugh
put
it.
None
of
this
is
legal,
regardless
of
the
citizenship
status
of
the
victim.
And,
by
the
by,
Kavanaugh’s
imagined
binary
—
citizen
or
“illegal”
immigrant
—
ignores
the
fact
that
hundreds
of
thousands
of
non-citizens
are
living
in
this
country
with
legal
status
as
students,
or
green
card
holders,
or
asylum
seekers.
How
are
they
supposed
to
prove
their
right
to
walk
down
the
street
unmolested
in
this
friendly
chat
of
Kavanaugh’s
daydreams?
Escobar
Molina
v.
Department
of
Homeland
Security
A
lawsuit
filed
Friday
in
DC
dispenses
with
the
justice’s
creative
fiction
that
ICE
is
making
a
“detentive
stop”
when
it
snatches
up
every
non-white
person
who
can’t
immediately
“prove”
their
citizenship
status
and
carts
them
off
in
shackles.
The
lead
plaintiff,
José
Escobar
Molina,
is
a
Salvadoran
immigrant
with
legal
status
who
was
walking
to
work
in
DC
on
August
21
when
“agents
arrested
him
without
a
warrant
and
without
asking
for
his
name,
his
identification,
or
anything
about
his
immigration
status.”
He
was
taken
to
Virginia
and
held
overnight
until
ICE
finally
realized
that
he
was
legal
and
released
him.
That
is
clearly
an
arrest
which
requires
probable
cause
to
believe
that
the
person
is
in
the
US
without
legal
status
and
that
he
is
likely
to
flee
in
the
time
that
it
takes
to
get
an
arrest
warrant.
See
8
USC
§
1357(a)(2):
Any
officer
or
employee
of
the
Service
authorized
under
regulations
prescribed
by
the
Attorney
General
shall
have
power
without
warrant
….
to
arrest
any
alien
who
in
his
presence
or
view
is
entering
or
attempting
to
enter
the
United
States
in
violation
of
any
law
or
regulation
made
in
pursuance
of
law
regulating
the
admission,
exclusion,
expulsion,
or
removal
of
aliens,
or
to
arrest
any
alien
in
the
United
States,
if
he
has
reason
to
believe
that
the
alien
so
arrested
is
in
the
United
States
in
violation
of
any
such
law
or
regulation
and
is
likely
to
escape
before
a
warrant
can
be
obtained
for
his
arrest,
but
the
alien
arrested
shall
be
taken
without
unnecessary
delay
for
examination
before
an
officer
of
the
Service
having
authority
to
examine
aliens
as
to
their
right
to
enter
or
remain
in
the
United
States;
The
plaintiffs
have
essentially
called
Kavanaugh’s
bluff:
If
the
Court
won’t
protect
immigrants
from
unlawful
detentions,
then
let’s
dispense
with
the
charade
that
these
are
“brief”
stops
and
acknowledge
that
they
are
dragnets
designed
to
arrest
every
non-white
person
in
a
particular
location
and
figure
out
at
some
future
hour
whether
they
have
committed
a
“crime.”
STFU,
Brett
Perhaps
Justice
Kavanaugh
will
learn
to
keep
his
mouth
shut
next
time
his
pals
try
to
put
out
an
indefensible
shadow
docket
order.
But
despite
the
fact
that
none
of
his
fellow
conservatives
signed
on
to
Kavanaugh’s
concurrence,
Kristi
Noem’s
pack
of
mangy
dogs
is
taking
it
as
carte
blanche
to
run
riot
in
the
streets.
“The
Supreme
Court’s
decision
is
evidence
of
the
fact
Border
Patrol
follows
the
Constitution
and
the
Fourth
Amendment,”
smirked
Gregory
Bovino,
the
Customs
and
Border
Patrol
official
who
supervised
the
ICE
dragnets
in
California.
The
New
York
Times
reports
that
Michele
Beckwith,
the
US
Attorney
for
the
Eastern
District
of
California,
was
fired
after
reminding
Bovino
that
he’d
need
reasonable
suspicion
to
detain
people
in
his
raid
on
Sacramento.
Within
five
hours
of
warning
Bovino
that
she
expected
“compliance
with
court
orders
and
the
Constitution,”
Beckwith
was
terminated
from
the
office
she’d
worked
in
for
15
years.
Meanwhile
on
BlueSky,
lawyers
are
calling
the
daily
barrage
of
violent
ICE
attacks
“Kavanaugh
stops,”
after
the
man
who
explained
that
they
were
very
cool
and
very
legal.
Let’s
see
whether
Kavanaugh
sticks
his
neck
out
again
to
explain
why
courts
are
simply
powerless
to
stop
the
government
from
locking
up
US
citizens
without
charge
for
days
on
end,
but
it’s
fine,
really
because
actually
…
…
Nope,
we
are
not
creative
(or
evil)
enough
to
come
up
with
a
way
to
paint
locking
human
beings
in
a
dungeon
is
merely
a
civil
exchange
of
pleasantries.
Over
to
you,
Brett.
Liz
Dye produces
the
Law
and
Chaos Substack and podcast.
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can
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to
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