SMU Law Review
Abstract
President Trump’s mass deportation campaign selected as one of its early targets Los Angeles, California, and its large Latina/o community. Comprising roughly half of the city’s population, Latina/os are being stopped, questioned, and rounded up by roving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) patrols. A legal challenge claimed that the patrols are engaging in unlawful racial profiling on a mass scale. The litigation responds to the widespread belief among Latina/os that the Trump Administration is unduly, if not exclusively, relying on race in targeting people for questioning about their immigration status.
For years, courts and political leaders have roundly condemned racial profiling, also known as Driving While Black or Brown, by police officers. That, however, is not the case when it comes to immigration enforcement. In 1975, the Supreme Court held that immigration enforcement officers can rely on race as one factor in an immigration stop but also found that race could not be the exclusive factor for the stop. That decision makes the ultimate resolution of the Los Angeles litigation difficult to predict.
Because many United States citizens and lawful immigrants are Latina/o, the demographics of contemporary Los Angeles make it problematic to rely on Latina/o appearance in deciding to question a person about their immigration status. Citizens and lawful immigrants have been caught up in the city-wide dragnet and suffered racial indignities, arrests, and detention. As demonstrated in past episodes, race-based immigration enforcement will undermine the Latina/o community’s sense of belonging in the nation for generations.
Recommended Citation
Kevin R Johnson,
The Trump Administration’s Racial Dragnet: Immigration Enforcement in Los Angeles,
79
SMU L. Rev.
7
(2026)
