The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to keep using what critics call “roving patrols” by immigration agents in seven Southern California counties while a legal challenge continues. The justices issued a brief, unsigned order with no explanation. The three liberal justices dissented.

The case stems from a series of incidents around Los Angeles in which masked, heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stopped people they believed to be Latino, including U.S. citizens, and questioned them about immigration status. Lower courts had blocked those tactics, finding the plaintiffs were likely to show the stops violated the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

By lifting that block, the Supreme Court cleared the way for ICE to resume brief stops and questioning during the appeal. The ruling does not decide who ultimately wins the lawsuit; it only changes what can happen while the case moves forward.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately to explain his vote. He said the factors agents were using, which included a person’s apparent ethnicity, the language they speak, the type of job they work, and where they are found, “taken together” can amount to reasonable suspicion of unlawful presence. He stressed that ethnicity alone cannot justify a stop, but said it can be a “relevant factor” in combination with others. He also emphasized that “reasonable suspicion” authorizes only a short stop to ask about status, not an arrest.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented. She warned that the order invites sweeping seizures of people “who look Latino, speak Spanish, and appear to work a low-wage job.” In her view, the government’s four-factor profile operates as a proxy for ethnicity and language and sweeps in many innocent people. She also pointed to accounts of aggressive tactics, including the use of firearms, physical force, and detentions that, she said, go far beyond the “brief” encounters the law allows.

The Department of Homeland Security praised the decision as a public-safety win and said agents would continue enforcement. Civil-rights groups, including the ACLU, condemned the order, warning it will place anyone perceived as Latino at greater risk of stops and detention in everyday settings such as bus stops, car washes, and day-labor sites.

The dispute arrived on the Court’s fast-track “emergency docket,” sometimes called the “shadow docket,” where the justices act without full briefing or oral argument. The Court offered no reasoning for the result, a practice that has drawn criticism from some justices and outside observers. Kavanaugh has defended limited explanations in emergency matters, while Kagan has urged more transparency.

What the legal standards mean, in plain terms

• “Roving patrols.” These are mobile enforcement teams that make stops away from fixed checkpoints. Critics say the practice in this case amounted to profiling in ordinary neighborhoods and workplaces rather than targeted operations based on specific leads.
• “Reasonable suspicion.” This is a lower standard than “probable cause.” Officers must be able to point to specific facts that suggest a person may be violating the law; a mere hunch is not enough. If reasonable suspicion exists, officers may briefly stop someone to ask limited questions. They cannot arrest or search without more.
• What the ruling does and does not do. It lets ICE continue the challenged stops while the lawsuit proceeds. It does not hold that the tactics are constitutional. The lower courts will still decide whether the government’s approach violates the Fourth Amendment and, if so, what remedies apply.

For residents of the affected counties, the immediate effect is practical: immigration agents may again conduct short, on-the-spot interviews based on a mix of factors Kavanaugh described. Ethnicity alone cannot lawfully be the reason for a stop, but the dissent warns that, in practice, the approved mix will operate as a stand-in for race and language, which risks stops of citizens and lawful residents, along with undocumented immigrants.

Next, the litigation returns to the lower courts for fuller proceedings on the facts and the law. The ultimate question remains the same: whether the Constitution permits immigration officers to rely on the government’s four-factor profile to initiate stops, and where the line falls between a brief inquiry and an unlawful seizure.