Ninth Circuit Lets Border Patrol Continue Immigration Stops in California

A Ninth Circuit panel dealt a setback to an agricultural workers’ union on Monday after it lifted a preliminary injunction prohibiting Border Patrol agents from detaining people without reasonable suspicion they violated immigration laws.

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Siding with the government, the three-judge panel determined in their 4-page-ruling “the district court considered only plaintiffs’ allegations of past harm. Although past harm may support standing to seek damages, it does not, on its own, establish standing to seek prospective injunctive relief.”

The United Farm Workers also needed to show impending future injury for a preliminary injunction, the panel ruled, finding no traction to the union’s claims during oral arguments that the department’s practice of routinely violating its clients’ Fourth Amendment rights was evidence of future injury.

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While the Ninth Circuit’s order lifts the preliminary injunction, it does not affect the plaintiffs’ underlying claims.

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The Border Patrol’s sweeping immigration operation, dubbed Operation Return to Sender, hit Kern County, California, and the surrounding areas frequented by agricultural workers between Jan. 7-9 last year — just a few days before Donald Trump took office for a second term.

In their complaint, the United Farm Workers describe the operation as a fishing expedition that dispensed with reasonable suspicion and relied on racial profiling instead. They say the operation swept up nearly 200 people in an unlawful dragnet in an attempt to get as many people to voluntarily deport themselves back to Mexico.

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