Atlanta – Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a chilling order allowing Trump’s masked federal agents to continue racially-targeted immigration raids across Southern California. The ruling gives legal cover to detaining people based on race, language, and occupation – a dramatic escalation in Trump’s war on immigrants and communities that disagree with his politics and abuses of power. The raids have included masked and armed federal agents pulling aside Latino individuals – including U.S. citizens – and demanding proof of citizenship, often without reasonable suspicion. Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo released the following statement in response:

“Today’s Supreme Court order green-lights racial profiling – allowing Trump’s masked agents to target people based on skin color, language, or where they work. This goes beyond stop-and-frisk. It’s stop and abduct – and the Court is on board. The same Court who ruled it unconstitutional to consider race in college admissions now says it’s fine to consider race when deciding who to detain and deport.

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“If it wasn’t already clear, it is now: far-right extremists have transformed the Court from a check on government power into a rubber stamp for authoritarianism. Trump is waging war on immigrants and Americans who dissent, and the Court is enabling it. We will fight back against this assault on our communities and our democracy – and organize to defeat it.”

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BACKGROUND: This SCOTUS order comes amid concerted pressure from White House advisor Stephen Miller for ICE to ramp up enforcement based on volume, not evidence – prioritizing arrest numbers over due process. In May, Miller demanded ICE target 3,000 arrests per day.

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Miller’s arrest quotas come as the Department of Justice’s immigration court system issued a new ruling that effectively rewrites prior policy – denying bail to many immigrants, even those who’ve lived in the U.S. for years. The ruling states that anyone suspected of entering the country illegally can now be held without the ability to request release on bond, even if they have a strong legal case to remain. Immigration judges and legal advocates warn the policy is designed to force self-deportation through indefinite detention.

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Trump is also openly escalating his attacks on Democratic-led cities. After deploying troops to Los Angeles, he’s now threatening to do the same in Chicago – even posting an “Apocalypse Now”-style meme declaring: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.” He has rebranded the Department of Defense as the Department of War, and insinuated he has the power to send in troops whenever he wants. With the Court backing him, Trump’s campaign of fear and weaponization of government power against the American people is growing more militarized, racialized, and authoritarian by the day.

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