The Supreme Court has set aside a federal judge’s temporary guardrails on immigration enforcement agents accused of racially profiling suspected undocumented immigrants in the Los Angeles area, sometimes ensnaring U.S. citizens in the process, in a case policy experts contend could have far-reaching implications for how enforcement is conducted in New York and across the country.

The court on Monday lifted, for now, a district court judge’s 2-month-old order barring Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the Los Angeles area from making immigration stops based solely on how the person looks, their ability to speak English, where they happen to be present, or their employment in a low-wage job, such as at a car wash. The court said the stay will remain in place while a federal appeals court fully takes up an appeal of the case, which could ultimately return to the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration requested the emergency stay, contending Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong’s ruling “significantly interferes” with immigration law enforcement. It called on the high court to “end this attempted judicial usurpation.” Frimpong’s restrictions – now on hold – applied only to enforcement in the Central District of California, but policy experts said the case could shape enforcement beyond the Golden State, and affect the lives of undocumented immigrants and those legally present in the country.

Muzaffar Chishti, senior fellow and director of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute at NYU Law School, said any ruling that enlarges the authority of agents to make stops – allowing them, for example, to detain suspected immigrants based on their perceived race – could have broad consequences.

“If this becomes the ruling, the mere appearance of a person would be a defensible basis for making an immigration arrest,” Chishti said. In theory, he added, “every New Yorker would be suspected of being here illegally [for purposes of being stopped and questioned] – anybody other than the Robert Redford-looking could be subject to arrest.”

Amy Belsher, director of immigrants’ rights litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the California case trains a spotlight on the administration’s enforcement tactics broadly. Under the White House’s “mass deportation” initiative, enforcement agents are being pushed to detain 3,000 people a day who lack permanent legal immigration status. In July, a Trump official promised to “flood the zone” – New York City – with ICE agents.

“Across the country, ICE agents are targeting, arresting and detaining people simply because they ‘appear’ to be noncitizens – including right here in New York,” Belsher said. “ICE isn’t even denying that they’re engaging in racial profiling tactics. A federal court in California was right to rule that these practices are unlawful – the Constitution protects us all from unlawful stops and detentions, no matter our race, language, or job.”

White House lawyers contend otherwise, arguing in court papers that the district court judge aimed to “micromanage immigration enforcement” while at once “turning every single stop in the [California] District into a potential contempt trap.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing in support of staying the district court judge’s order, suggested the case was a matter of immigration policy and enforcement priorities ill-suited for the judiciary. He wrote that while someone’s “apparent ethnicity” cannot provide the constitutionally required reasonable suspicion to justify an immigration stop, it can be a relevant factor when considered with other “salient factors.”

Kavanaugh added: “Under the court’s precedents, not to mention common sense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States.”

But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing in opposition to the stay, called the high court's decision “yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. 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. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”

Here’s what else to know now about the California case, based on information in the court filings.

Who sued whom?

The case was brought against the Trump administration by workers’ and immigrants' rights groups and Latino individuals who were stopped and detained in June raids by what the plaintiffs described as “roving patrols” of masked and armed ICE agents. Locations included a Los Angeles-area bus stop, farms, a car wash, a tow truck yard, a recycling center, a park and a gym, according to court filings. Three named plaintiffs were detained at a bus stop. Two other named plaintiffs were stopped and questioned – one at a car wash and the other at a tow yard – despite informing ICE agents they were U.S. citizens. The defendants are a host of federal officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

What does the lawsuit allege?

The plaintiffs charged that ICE agents, acting without warrants, indiscriminately rounded up Latinos, without any particularized or individualized assessment that those individuals had violated federal law. This amounted to racial profiling, in violation of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, according to the complaint. The government raids, the plaintiffs contend, were part of “an officially sanctioned policy and practice of making such stops without an individualized assessment of reasonable suspicion.” They asked the district court to order a temporary halt of stops based solely on four factors: race and ethnicity; language; presence; and profession, pending further court proceedings. They also asked the court to order that the detainees be permitted access to lawyers, based on allegations detainees had been denied counsel.

What did Frimpong say in her ruling?

Frimpong ruled the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in proving the Trump administration is conducting “roving patrols” without reasonable suspicion and denying detainees access to lawyers. The question, she wrote, is what should be done about it? Frimpong answered, “The individuals and organizations who have brought this lawsuit have made a fairly modest request: that this Court order the federal government to stop … the Court grants their request.”

Frimpong’s temporary order barred agents from making detentive stops in the Los Angeles area without the required reasonable suspicion that those detained were here without legal authorization. She wrote that the submitted evidence showed a pattern of stops “without any basis” outside of the four factors enumerated by the plaintiffs, including presence at locations including a bus stop, car wash, tow yard, day-laborer pick up site, or agricultural site.

How has the government responded?

The administration’s lawyers argued in their petition to the Supreme Court that certain types of businesses, including car washes, had been selected for enforcement actions “because of past experiences” that undocumented people "utilize and seek work at these locations.” The administration contends the Central District “harbors some 2 million illegal aliens out of its total population of nearly 20 million people, making it by far the largest destination for illegal aliens.” It said the district court judge had imposed a “straitjacket on law-enforcement efforts” that allows for the full context and “totality-of-the-circumstances” to be considered when considering the constitutionality of stops.

The judge’s injunction, the government said, “wrongly brands countless lawful stops as unconstitutional, thereby hampering a basic law-enforcement tool, while turning every single stop in the District into a potential contempt trap."

What’s happened since Frimpong issued her restrictions on immigration stops?

In a filing last week in the continuing district court case, the plaintiffs wrote that after the judge’s limitations were put in place, street arrests of immigrants from Latin countries in the Central District who were without deportation orders, criminal charges or convictions declined 83%. “However,” according to the filing, “following a few weeks of relative calm at Southern California locations such as Home Depots and car washes, Defendants changed course and, in early August, resumed their practice of conducting seizures en masse during non-targeted raids.” The filing requests expedited discovery.