Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo (2025)

Supreme Court of the United States

No. 25A169

Kristi Noem, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, et al. v. Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, et al.

On Application for Stay

[September 8, 2025]

The application for stay presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is granted. The July 11, 2025 order entered by the United States District Court for the Central District of California, case No. 2:25–cv–5605, is stayed 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. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.

Concurring Opinion

Justice Kavanaugh, concurring in the grant of the application for stay.

I vote to grant the Government's application for an interim stay pending appeal of the District Court's injunction.

The Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes immigration officers to "interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or to remain in the United States." 66 Stat. 233, 8 U. S. C. §1357(a)(1). Immigration officers "may briefly detain" an individual "for questioning" if they have "a reasonable suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the person being questioned . . . is an alien illegally in the United States." 8 CFR §287.8(b)(2) (2025); see United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 884 (1975); United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002). The reasonable suspicion inquiry turns on the "totality of the particular circumstances." Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S., at 885, n. 10; Arvizu, 534 U. S., at 273.

The Government estimates that at least 15 million people are in the United States illegally. Many millions illegally entered (or illegally overstayed) just in the last few years.

Illegal immigration is especially pronounced in the Los Angeles area, among other locales in the United States. About 10 percent of the people in the Los Angeles region are illegally in the United States—meaning about 2 million illegal immigrants out of a total population of 20 million.

Not surprisingly given those extraordinary numbers, U.S. immigration officers have prioritized immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area. The Government sometimes makes brief investigative stops to check the immigration status of those who gather in locations where people are hired for day jobs; who work or appear to work in jobs such as construction, landscaping, agriculture, or car washes that often do not require paperwork and are therefore attractive to illegal immigrants; and who do not speak much if any English. If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go. If the individual is illegally in the United States, the officers may arrest the individual and initiate the process for removal.

Immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of U.S. immigration enforcement for decades, across several presidential administrations. In this case, however, the District Court enjoined U.S. immigration officers from making investigative stops in the Los Angeles area when the stops are based on the following factors or combination of factors: (i) presence at particular locations such as bus stops, car washes, day laborer pickup sites, agricultural sites, and the like; (ii) the type of work one does; (iii) speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent; and (iv) apparent race or ethnicity.

The Government contends that the injunction will substantially hamper its efforts to enforce the immigration laws in the Los Angeles area. The Government has therefore asked this Court to stay the District Court's injunction.

To obtain a stay from this Court, the moving party must demonstrate a fair prospect that, if the District Court's decision were affirmed on appeal, this Court would grant certiorari and reverse. The moving party also must show a likelihood that it would suffer irreparable harm if a stay were not granted. Those two factors are the "most critical." Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009). Particularly in "close cases," the Court also considers the balance of harms and equities to the parties, including the public interest. Hollingsworth v. Perry, 558 U.S. 183, 190 (2010) (per curiam); see Nken, 556 U.S., at 435.

In my view, the Government has made a sufficient showing to obtain a stay pending appeal.

To begin with, given the significance of the issue to the Government's immigration enforcement efforts, this Court would likely grant certiorari if the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's injunction. See, e.g., United States v. Texas, 599 U.S. 670 (2023); Biden v. Texas, 597 U.S. 785 (2022).

In addition, on two alternative grounds, the Government has demonstrated a fair prospect of reversal of the District Court's injunction.

First, under this Court's decision in Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95 (1983), plaintiffs likely lack Article III standing to seek a broad injunction restricting immigration officers from making these investigative stops. In Lyons, the Court held that standing to obtain future injunctive relief does not exist merely because plaintiffs experienced past harm and fear its recurrence. What matters is the "reality of the threat of repeated injury," not "subjective apprehensions." Id., at 107, n. 8. So too here.

Plaintiffs' standing theory largely tracks the theory rejected in Lyons. Like in Lyons, plaintiffs here allege that they were the subjects of unlawful law enforcement actions in the past—namely, being stopped for immigration questioning allegedly without reasonable suspicion of unlawful presence. And like in Lyons, plaintiffs seek a forward-looking injunction to enjoin law enforcement from stopping them without reasonable suspicion in the future. But like in Lyons, plaintiffs have no good basis to believe that law enforcement will unlawfully stop them in the future based on the prohibited factors—and certainly no good basis for believing that any stop of the plaintiffs is imminent. Therefore, they lack Article III standing: "Absent a sufficient likelihood" that the plaintiffs "will again be wronged in a similar way," they are "no more entitled to an injunction than any other citizen of Los Angeles; and a federal court may not entertain a claim by any or all citizens who no more than assert that certain practices of law enforcement officers are unconstitutional." Lyons, 461 U.S., at 111; see Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 568 U.S. 398 (2013); Application 16–22; Reply 4–9.

Plaintiffs' standing theory is especially deficient in this case because immigration officers also use their experience to stop suspected illegal immigrants based on a variety of factors. So even if the Government had a policy of making stops based on the factors prohibited by the District Court, immigration officers might not rely only on those factors if and when they stop plaintiffs in the future.

Second, even if plaintiffs had standing, the Government has a fair prospect of succeeding on the Fourth Amendment issue. See Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873; Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266; Application 22–30; Reply 9–14.

To stop an individual for brief questioning about immigration status, the Government must have reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the United States. See Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S., at 880–882; Arvizu, 534 U.S., at 273; United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989). Reasonable suspicion is a lesser requirement than probable cause and "considerably short" of the preponderance of the evidence standard. Arvizu, 534 U.S., at 274. Whether an officer has reasonable suspicion depends on the totality of the circumstances. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S., at 885, n. 10; Arvizu, 534 U.S., at 273. Here, those circumstances include: that there is an extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area; that those individuals tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work; that those individuals often 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; and that many of those illegally in the Los Angeles area come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English. Cf. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S., at 884–885 (listing "[a]ny number of factors" that contribute to reasonable suspicion of illegal presence). To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court's case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a "relevant factor" when considered along with other salient factors. Id., at 887.

Under this 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. Importantly, reasonable suspicion means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status. 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. Only if the person is illegally in the United States may the stop lead to further immigration proceedings.

In short, given this Court's precedents, the Government has demonstrated a fair prospect of success both on standing and Fourth Amendment grounds. To conclude otherwise, this Court would likely have to overrule or significantly narrow two separate lines of precedents: the Lyons line of cases with respect to standing and the Brignoni-Ponce line of cases with respect to immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion. In this interim posture, plaintiffs have not made a persuasive argument for this Court to overrule or narrow either line of precedent, much less both of them.

The Government has also demonstrated that it would likely suffer irreparable harm if the District Court's injunction is not stayed. As the Court has indicated, "'"[a]ny time" '" that the Government is "'"enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable injury."'" Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. ___, ___ (2025) (slip op., at 25) (quoting Maryland v. King, 567 U.S. 1301, 1303 (2012) (Roberts, C. J., in chambers)).

So it is in this case, particularly given the millions of individuals illegally in the United States, the myriad "significant economic and social problems" caused by illegal immigration, Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S., at 878, and the Government's efforts to prioritize stricter enforcement of the immigration laws enacted by Congress. Notably, moreover, the District Court's injunction threatens contempt sanctions against immigration officers who make brief investigative stops later found by the court to violate the injunction. The prospect of such after-the-fact judicial second-guessing and contempt proceedings will inevitably chill lawful immigration enforcement efforts. On the two most critical factors, therefore, the Government has demonstrated that a stay is warranted. . . .

In any event, the balance of harms and equities in this case tips in favor of the Government. The interests of individuals who are illegally in the country in avoiding being stopped by law enforcement for questioning is ultimately an interest in evading the law. That is not an especially weighty legal interest.

To be sure, I recognize and fully appreciate that many (not all, but many) illegal immigrants come to the United States to escape poverty and the lack of freedom and opportunities in their home countries, and to make better lives for themselves and their families. And I understand that they may feel somewhat misled by the varying U.S. approaches to immigration enforcement over the last few decades. But the fact remains that, under the laws passed by Congress and the President, they are acting illegally by remaining in the United States—at least unless Congress and the President choose some other legislative approach to legalize some or all of those individuals now illegally present in the country. And by illegally immigrating into and remaining in the country, they are not only violating the immigration laws, but also jumping in front of those noncitizens who follow the rules and wait in line to immigrate into the United States through the legal immigration process. For those reasons, the interests of illegal immigrants in evading questioning (and thus evading detection of their illegal presence) are not particularly substantial as a legal matter.

Moreover, as for stops of those individuals who are legally in the country, 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.

Finally, although the dissent emphasizes the force allegedly used by immigration officers, that is not the issue in this case. The District Court enjoined the Government from stopping individuals for questioning based on several enumerated factors. The injunction is silent as to the use of force. And it is not necessary for the injunction to address that use-of-force question because the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness standard continues to govern the officers' use of force and to prohibit excessive force.

To the extent that excessive force has been used, the Fourth Amendment prohibits such action, and remedies should be available in federal court. I agree with the dissent on that point. But to reiterate, this injunction against brief stops for questioning does not address the use-of-force issue.

In short, the balance of harms and equities favors the Government here. . . .

In sum, the Government has demonstrated a fair prospect of success on the merits and has met the other factors for an interim stay pending appeal of the District Court's injunction. I therefore vote to grant the Government's application.

Dissenting Opinion

Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson join, dissenting.

In early June, the Government launched immigration enforcement raids across Los Angeles and its surrounding counties. During the raids, teams of armed and masked agents pulled up to car washes, tow yards, farms, and parks and began seizing individuals on sight, often before asking a single question.

A Federal District Court found that these raids were part of a pattern of conduct by the Government that likely violated the Fourth Amendment. Based on the evidence before it, the court held that the Government was stopping individuals based solely on four factors: (1) their apparent race or ethnicity; (2) whether they spoke Spanish or English with an accent; (3) the type of location at which they were found (such as a car wash or bus stop); and (4) the type of job they appeared to work. Concluding that stops based on these four factors alone, even when taken together, could not satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of reasonable suspicion, the District Court temporarily enjoined the Government from continuing its pattern of unlawful mass arrests while it considered whether longer-term relief was appropriate.

Instead of allowing the District Court to consider these troubling allegations in the normal course, a majority of this Court decides to take the once-extraordinary step of staying the District Court’s order. That decision is 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. . . .

The Government, and now the concurrence, has all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction. As the District Court found, and the Government does not meaningfully contest, the present evidence reveals that the Operation At Large “seizures occurred based solely upon the four enumerated factors, either alone or in combination.” App. 100a. The Government now asks this Court to bless that conduct, at least temporarily, by issuing a stay. The Government, however, has not demonstrated the necessary likelihood of success on the merits to warrant this Court’s extraordinary intervention. . . .

Gavidia, Viramontes, three other individuals stopped during Operation At Large, and four associations filed this putative class action against Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and other senior federal immigration enforcement officials. As relevant, the plaintiffs allege that the Government has violated the Fourth Amendment by adopting a policy, pattern, or practice of stopping individuals without reasonable suspicion “based on nothing but broad profiles,” including “apparent race and ethnicity.” ECF Doc. 16, p. 13.2 The plaintiffs then moved for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prevent the Government from conducting further stops based solely on four factors: apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent, presence in a particular location (e.g., bus stop, car wash, etc.), and the type of work one does. They argued that these four factors, even when taken together, cannot support reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity absent more specific information about the person being stopped or the location being searched. . . . 

The Government, and now the concurrence, has all but declared that all Latinos, U. S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction. As the District Court found, and the Government does not meaningfully contest, the present evidence reveals that the Operation At Large “seizures occurred based solely upon the four enumerated factors, either alone or in combination.” App. 100a. The Government now asks this Court to bless that conduct, at least temporarily, by issuing a stay. The Government, however, has not demonstrated the necessary likelihood of success on the merits to warrant this Court’s extraordinary intervention.

The Fourth Amendment “imposes limits on search-and-seizure powers in order to prevent arbitrary and oppressive interference by enforcement officials with the privacy and personal security of individuals.” United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 554 (1976). “[W]henever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has seized that person, and the Fourth Amendment requires that seizure be reasonable.” United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 878 (1975) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). As relevant here, officers may stop an individual “only if they are aware of specific articulable facts, together with rational inferences from those facts, that reasonably warrant suspicion” that the individual “may be illegally in the country.” Id., at 884. This requires “more than an ‘inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or “hunch”’ of criminal activity.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U. S. 119, 123–124 (2000) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 27 (1968)).

Critically, a set of facts cannot constitute reasonable suspicion if it “describe[s] a very large category of presumably innocent” people. Reid v. Georgia, 448 U. S. 438, 441 (1980) (per curiam). In Brignoni-Ponce, for example, the Court held that “Mexican ancestry” alone did not constitute reasonable suspicion to support stops by Border Patrol agents, even near the border, because “[l]arge numbers of native-born and naturalized citizens have the physical characteristics identified with Mexican ancestry.” 422 U. S., at 886–887. So too in Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 51–52 (1979), the Court held that standing in an alley in a “neighborhood frequented by drug users” did not rise to reasonable suspicion because that activity was “no different from the activity of other pedestrians in that neighborhood.” See also Kansas v. Glover, 589 U. S. 376, 385, n. 1 (2020) (reiterating the need for “an individualized suspicion that a particular citizen was engaged in a particular crime” beyond just a “demographic profile” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

The Fourth Amendment thus prohibits exactly what the Government is attempting to do here: seize individuals based solely on a set of facts that “describe[s] a very large category of presumably innocent” people. Reid, 448 U. S., at 441. As the District Court correctly held, the four factors—apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, location, and type of work—are “no more indicative of illegal presence in the country than of legal presence.” App. 105a. The factors also in no way reflect the kind of individualized inquiry the Fourth Amendment demands. See, e.g., Terry, 392 U. S., at 21, n. 18 (“This demand for specificity . . . is the central teaching of this Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence”); United States v. Arvizu, 534 U. S. 266, 277 (2002) (relying on particularized facts about the vehicle and its passengers to justify stop based on reasonable suspicion). Allowing the seizure of any Latino speaking Spanish at a car wash in Los Angeles tramples the constitutional requirement that officers “must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.” United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 417–418 (1981).

The Government, joined by the concurrence, brushes aside this Court’s precedent with an appeal to probability, arguing that the “high prevalence” of undocumented immigrants in the Central District “should enable agents to stop a relatively broad range of individuals.” Application to Stay TRO 28. Without even a citation, the Government asserts that “10 percent of the population in the Central District” is unlawfully present, so it is “inevitable and unremarkable” that immigration officers would target any Latino person, or any person speaking accented English, or any person standing in a particular type of location, or any person working a low wage job in the greater Los Angeles area. Ibid. Never mind that nearly 47 percent of the Central District’s population identifies as Hispanic or Latino. App. 45a; ECF Doc. 45–19, pp. 6–7. Never mind that over 37 percent of the population of Los Angeles County speaks Spanish at home, and over 55 percent speak a language other than English. App. 46a. “Of course, aggregate statistics . . . cannot substitute for the individualized suspicion that the Fourth Amendment requires.” Glover, 589 U. S., at 390, n. (Kagan, J., concurring).

In fact, the Court rejected a similar argument levied by the Government in Brignoni-Ponce. There, the Government asserted that it could stop drivers of apparent Mexican ancestry in border areas because most undocumented immigrants in those areas are Mexican and most “leave the border area in private vehicles.” 422 U. S., at 879. Unlike today, the Court there rightly rejected the Government’s rationales because they would cover “a large volume of legitimate traffic as well.” Id., at 882. “[W]ithout any suspicion that a particular vehicle is carrying [undocumented] immigrants,” the Government’s broad, statistical approach to reasonable suspicion “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.” Ibid. (emphasis added). Rather, the Court found that reasonable suspicion required additional factors, particularly ones specific to a given vehicle or individual, such as “[t]he driver’s behavior,” whether the vehicle is “heavily loaded” or has “an extraordinary number of passengers,” or whether the officer “observe[s] persons trying to hide.” Id., at 885. The holding and reasoning in Brignoni-Ponce clearly supports, rather than undermines, the District Court’s injunction here. Contra, ante, at 6 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in grant of application for stay). . . .

In this case, the Court yet again grants emergency relief to the Government when irreparable harm is sorely lacking. The Government’s sole argument on this score is that the TRO “chills [its] enforcement efforts” and “deters officers from stopping suspects even when they have reasonable suspicion on other grounds.” Application to Stay TRO 36. That misconstrues both the TRO and our standard for assessing irreparable harm. The TRO does not preclude the Government from enforcing its immigration laws, so long as in doing so it stops individuals based on additional facts on top of the four factors listed. . . . 

Accordingly, there is no reason to credit the Government’s assertion that it will suffer irreparable harm. Instead, it is the people of Los Angeles and the Central District who will suffer from this Court’s grant of relief to the Government. Immigration agents are not conducting “brief stops for questioning,” as the concurrence would like to believe. Ante, at 9 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.). They are seizing people using firearms, physical violence, and warehouse detentions. Nor are undocumented immigrants the only ones harmed by the Government’s conduct. United States citizens are also being seized, taken from their jobs, and prevented from working to support themselves and their families.

The concurrence relegates the interests of U. S. citizens and individuals with legal status to a single sentence, positing that the Government will free these individuals as soon as they show they are legally in the United States. Ante, at 8 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.). That blinks reality. Two plaintiffs in this very case tried to explain that they are U. S. citizens; one was then pushed against a fence with his arms twisted behind his back, and the other was taken away from his job to a warehouse for further questioning. More fundamentally, it is the Government’s burden to prove that it has reasonable suspicion to stop someone. The concurrence improperly shifts the burden onto an entire class of citizens to carry enough documentation to prove that they deserve to walk freely. The Constitution does not permit the creation of such a second-class citizenship status.

The equities therefore lie with the plaintiffs. Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor. Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities. . . .

The Fourth Amendment protects every individual’s constitutional right to be “free from arbitrary interference by law officers.” Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S., at 878. After today, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little. Because this is unconscionably irreconcilable with our Nation’s constitutional guarantees, I dissent.