In ongoing litigation over U.S. Border Patrol arrests in California’s Eastern District, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on whether farmworkers remain at risk of being unlawfully stopped and targeted as the panel reviewed the district court’s decision to issue a preliminary injunction limiting such practices, reported Courthouse News Service.
“The government claims on appeal that it will follow the law going forward, while at the same time fighting an order that requires it to do just that,” Keker partner Franco Muzzio said. “We’re encouraged the panel seemed to see through that contradiction.”
While the federal government is seeking to overturn the injunction, attorneys from Keker and the ACLU Northern California representing the United Farmworkers of America point to evidence that agents engaged in a consistent pattern of unconstitutional stops during its January operation in and around Bakersfield, including dozens of arrests made without prior knowledge of immigration status. Because affected individuals continue to live and work in the same areas, they remain at risk of repeated harm.
Courthouse News Service reported that the Ninth Circuit panel pressed both sides on whether the conduct reflected isolated incidents or a broader pattern. The Ninth Circuit has not yet issued a decision.
In a separate ruling earlier this month, the district court found that Border Patrol agents had violated the injunction during a July operation in Sacramento in which they detained day laborers without reasonable suspicion. The court concluded agents relied on “unsupported assumptions, hunches and generalizations” and even drafted unreliable, boilerplate arrest reports to justify the stops.
The case is one of the first in the nation to challenge the Border Patrol’s street-level enforcement tactics that it subsequently deployed in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis.
The Keker team on the case includes Muzzio, Jason George, Christina Lee, Julia Greenberg, Natalie Heim, Reaghan Braun, and Zainab Ramahi.
You can read the Courthouse News Service article here and Law 360 here. You can also watch an NBC San Diego segment here.
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