SCOTUS lets Trump resume LA ICE raids, fire FTC commissioner

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Monday allows the Trump administration to resume targeted Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles. A lower court ruled that the administration’s so-called roving raids were likely unconstitutional because ICE discriminatorily targeted people who spoke Spanish or held certain lower-class employment. In its 6-3 ruling Monday, the high court granted the Trump administration’s emergency petition to overturn the lower court ruling, allowing the roving raids to resume.

What did the majority opinion say? The court offered no majority opinion on the order, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh released a personal opinion concurring with the court. It’s common sense that an individual's ability to speak English or their type of work would play into an officer’s reasonable suspicion that someone is illegally in the country, Kavanaugh said. However, that suspicion only empowers officers to stop and question an individual about his or her immigration status, Kavanaugh said, adding that further law enforcement action can only proceed if officers verify that the person is in the country illegally. He cited previous SCOTUS rulings for the success of the government’s arguments for the tactics under the Fourth Amendment.

Was there a dissenting opinion? Justice Sonia Sotomayor released a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, describing the ruling as another grave misuse of the SCOTUS emergency docket. The American government should not be able to seize someone simply because they look Latino, speak Spanish, or work a low-wage job, according to the dissent.

Any other SCOTUS rulings for Trump?

• The Supreme Court approved another emergency petition on Monday, allowing Trump to fire Democratic FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter without cause. The SCOTUS order overturned rulings from a lower court that found Slaughter’s dismissal unconstitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts released the order on Monday, giving Slaughter’s office one week to respond.

• The administration filed another emergency petition on Monday for the court to rule on whether the administration may freeze billions of dollars in foreign aid. A lower court already issued a preliminary injunction on the foreign aid cuts, which an appeals court also refused to overturn.

Dig deeper: Read my previous report on a July order from SCOTUS allowing Trump to fire members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.