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How you look and how you sound may now be enough reason to be questioned by immigration agents, according to critics of a recent Supreme Court decision.
The ruling allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to continue roving patrols at places often frequented by immigrants in Los Angeles.
Civil rights advocates say the decision could have consequences across the country, including in Massachusetts.
Ana Kiefer, a Brazilian native living in Boston, said she’s troubled by recent raids in her East Boston neighborhood.
“It’s really, really hard to see all the good people go,” she said.
She worries her own son, who lives in California, could one day be wrongfully profiled.
“This is out of control,” Kiefer said. “If you look my son, he looked like a Spanish kid.”
Masked Customs and Border Protection agents arrested a strawberry vendor Thursday outside Democracy Center in downtown Los Angeles, where California’s top Democrats were holding a press event.
The Supreme Court’s decision Monday puts a hold on a lower court restraining order in California that had barred federal law enforcement from detaining people based on perceived race, ethnicity, language and workplace.
The ruling changes how suspicion is legally defined, Northeastern law professor Jeremy Paul said.
“This is really a transformation in the way that the country has previously thought about what suspicion means,” Paul said. “[It] turns the Constitution on its head. We’re supposed to have individualized suspicion. You have to be read to believe you were here illegally. Otherwise you shouldn’t be able to be stopped.”
The lawsuit at the center of the case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU after ICE raids at Los Angeles home improvement stores, car washes, and other public places where Latinos gather.
Adriana Lafaille, managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, said the law remains the same.
“This changes nothing about what the law is. It’s been the law, well-established for decades, that no one can be stopped because of how they look,” Lafaille said.
Still, she warned, agents often push the limits.
“Facts on the ground really showed a pattern of violating people’s rights… We’ve already seen a lot of examples of people, U.S. citizens, people with lawful status, who are stopped,” she said. “We have to keep fighting to ensure that our rights are honored.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the Supreme Court’s emergency ruling, saying on a post on X that ICE can now carry out roving patrols without judicial micromanagement.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has denied racially profiling people. The agency’s Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement to NBC10 Boston saying, “The Supreme Court simply applied longstanding precedent regarding what qualifies as ‘reasonable suspicion’ under the Fourth Amendment. What makes someone a target of ICE is if they are illegally in the U.S. DHS enforces federal immigration law without fear, favor, or prejudice.”
While the decision technically applies only to California, Paul said it could influence ICE operations elsewhere, including Boston.
“Here in Boston, if you are here unlawfully, you have reason to be fearful that ICE will come after you. And if you’re here illegally, you still have reason to fear that you might be stopped, you might be questioned, and you might even be detained,” Paul said.
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Oscar Margain
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