In the latest legal development challenging the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda here in the Central District of California, Judge Maame Frimpong has issued a preliminary injunction in Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin (2:25-cv-05605-MEMF-SP) ruling that warrantless arrests require ICE/CBP to assess and document the escape risk of the individual being detained before such a warrantless arrest can be made. Judge Frimpong also certified a class of “All persons since June 6, 2025, who have been arrested or will be arrested in this District for alleged immigration violations without a warrant and without a pre-arrest, individualized assessment of probable cause that the person poses a likelihood of escape”—i.e., the “Warrantless Arrest Plaintiffs.”[1]
Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin, formerly Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem, has evolved into a complex federal civil rights class action. The case has made its way to the Ninth Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court, and back to the Central District of California. Vasquez Perdomo began as a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, with the Plaintiffs alleging, inter alia, that ICE/CBP were engaging in illegal roving patrols by detaining persons without reasonable suspicion. The complaint was first amended on July 2, 2025, with an accompanying Request 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 English with an accent, presence in a particular location, and the type of work one does.
The TRO was granted by the trial court and appealed by the government to the Ninth Circuit with a request that the TRO be stayed. The Ninth Circuit denied the request and on August 7, 2025 the government filed a motion in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking the same stay it requested of the Ninth Circuit. One month later, on September 8, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the stay, concluding that Plaintiffs lacked Article III standing and that “common sense” dictated that ICE can rely on those factors to establish reasonable suspicion. On April 9, 2026, the Plaintiffs filed a Second Amended Complaint which added a Fifth Amendment Due Process claim (discriminatory immigration enforcement) and a Fourth Amendment claim pleading violation of the guarantee against unreasonable seizures. On June 8, 2026, the Plaintiffs filed the subject motion for a preliminary injunction regarding the warrantless arrest class. On September 2, 2026, the court granted the Motion.
Notwithstanding the U.S. Supreme Court’s stay of the original TRO, Vasquez Perdomo stands as a prime example of the courts exercising legal guardrails on how immigration laws can be enforced here in the Central District. This latest preliminary injunction Order and its accompanying class certification should be viewed in this wider context to fully understand its current implications.
Key Takeaways
- The granting of the preliminary injunction provides a layer of protection, albeit temporary, to the people of greater Los Angeles, especially noncitizens and their families, from illegal warrantless arrests by ICE/CBP/ERO (hereafter “ICE”).
- ICE will now be prohibited from enforcing their policy of making warrantless civil immigration arrests without an individualized determination by the arresting agent or officer of probable cause that the person being arrested is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.
- ICE must take into consideration the totality of the circumstances known to the agent or that he/she can discover between first encountering a person and arresting them without a warrant. Significantly, the district court’s Order finds that “Mere presence within the United States in violation of United States immigration law is not, by itself, sufficient to conclude that a person is likely to escape before a warrant for arrest can be obtained.”
- ICE cannot rely on the January 28, 2026 “Lyons Memo” (memorandum by former Acting Director of ICE, Todd Lyons) to the extent it suggests that unlawful immigration status alone is enough to create “a likelihood of escape.”
- Critically, the district court mandates that ICE must document, as soon as practicable, the facts and circumstances surrounding the warrantless civil immigration arrest in narrative form. ICE must also include the date, time, and location of the arrest, and the date and time the agent or officer completed the documentation.
- The evolution of this case into a FRCP 23 class action provides the Plaintiffs the opportunity to solidify their standing arguments to maintain the action as it allows representative parties—in this case, associations—the right to maintain the action on behalf of a larger group of similarly situated persons “…who have been or will be arrested in this District…”
- The prosecution of Rule 23 provides for a robust exercise of discovery and the marshaling of an evidentiary record on a systemic class wide basis.
The Immigration Law at Issue
The key statute in Judge Frimpong’s current Order is 8 U.S.C.1357. An immigration officer’s authority to make a warrantless arrest requires either (1) that an offense against the United States was committed in the officer’s presence, or (2) that the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the person is committing a felony and “there is a likelihood of the person escaping before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest.” 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(5)(A). The injury the Warrantless Arrest Plaintiffs identified is that their members have been arrested in violation of these requirements—specifically, without the required likelihood-of-escape analysis.
This Preliminary Injunction Order is made under the umbra of Justice Kavanaugh’s shadow docket decision to stay Judge Frimpong’s prior order preventing ICE from conducting arrests based on a person’s appearance, spoken language, presence at a specific location, occupation, and ethnicity. The enforcement actions ICE can continue to make, based on those perceived factors, are now commonly referred to as “Kavanaugh Stops.” As we know, Justice Kavanaugh held in his concurrence that the injunction was improper under the City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 110 (1983) decision, without acknowledging that stops based on race are ongoing and sanctioned ICE practice. Kavanaugh’s analysis, such as it is, reiterates race-based enforcement practices—and recasts racial profiling as “common sense.”
As mentioned, the Vasquez Perdomo lawsuit has gone through several iterations. On February 26, 2026, Plaintiffs amended their complaint to add claims of equal protection violations (Fifth Amendment) and unreasonable search and seizure violations (Fourth Amendment) in response to the use of military-style tactics to stop members of the community without an adequate showing of reasonable suspicion. The complaint now contains nine causes of action, three of which (2nd, 3rd, and 4th) specifically apply to the “Warrantless Arrest Plaintiffs.” On August 11, 2026, the court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss the Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint, finding that the allegations adequately plead causes of action for constitutional violations.
In its current procedural posture, the district court considered the Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, requiring that the Government determine whether someone is likely to escape before they can arrest that person without a warrant and to document why they think the person is likely to escape. As previously stated, the basic law at issue in this preliminary injunction request is 8 U.S.C. § 1357 (a)(2), which allows an ICE or CBP agent to conduct a warrantless arrest of any noncitizen if (1) the agent has reason to believe that the noncitizen is in the United States in violation of any law regulating the admission, exclusion, expulsion or removal of noncitizens, and (2) is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained for their arrest. That motion for preliminary injunction was granted in part.
The Continuing Issue of Standing
The issue of Standing has hovered over this case since its inception and remains a key issue as the possibility of the matter going back before the U.S. Supreme Court remains. In the Central District of California, Article III constitutional standing requires a plaintiff to show a concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent injury causally connected to the defendant’s conduct. The injury cannot be speculative, i.e., it must be likely that the remedy issued by the court will relieve the injury. One of the enduring arguments made by the Government is the alleged lack of standing and ICE’s reliance on the case of City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. at 110. The Government argues that Plaintiffs lack standing because there is no real and immediate threat that the alleged harm is likely to recur. To show injury in fact, “past exposure to illegal conduct” does not suffice absent “continuing, present adverse effects.” Lyons, 461 U.S. at 102.
The district court disagreed with the position that there is no recurring harm, noting that Plaintiffs have shown their class members are likely to suffer future injury. In that regard, Judge Frimpong noted that recurring harm can be shown if it is a pattern of officially sanctioned behavior violative of a plaintiff’s rights. The district court found “ample evidence that Defendants have an ongoing policy and practice of conducting warrantless arrests in violation of the requirement to conduct a likelihood of escape analysis.”
The Order highlights the Government’s FRCP 30(b)(6) testimony, which is binding on the government, to illustrate that the government has an “Escape Risk Policy” that caused the Plaintiff’s injuries. The district court found the 30(b)(6) deposition testimony was conclusive on that point, “This evidence – which demonstrates ICE’s position that sufficient information existed for a warrantless arrest, when the 30(b)(6) witness could identify no evidence that escape risk was considered – supports the existence and ongoing nature of Defendant’s Escape Risk Policy.”
The district court surmised that because ICE’s Escape Risk Policy is in ongoing violation of Plaintiff’s statutory rights, “it follows that enjoining the Government from following that policy will grant Warrantless Arrest Plaintiffs relief . . . Because LAWCN [(the Los Angeles Worker Center Network)] and CHIRLA [(the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights)] have shown their members have an injury in fact caused by Defendants’ policy and redressable through an injunction, the organizations’ members have standing.”
The Court’s Winter Factors Analysis
The district court provides a classic Winter factors analysis in granting the preliminary injunction, finding that the Government operates a coordinated set of policies concerning escape risk assessments which operate in tandem to support the stated goal of arresting everyone without lawful status, thereby avoiding the escape risk assessment requirement. Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008). The district court lays out the four Winter factors and reiterates that in order to qualify for injunctive relief, Plaintiffs must demonstrate (1) a likelihood of success on the merits, (2) a likelihood that they will suffer irreparable harm without an injunction, (3) the balance of equities tips in their favor, and (4) an injunction is in the public interest. The opinion, while qualifying its holding that it is not a final decision on the merits of any claim, makes clear that there is a likelihood of success on the merits because the officially sanctioned “Escape Risk Policy” operates to violate the Plaintiffs’ member’s rights.
In confirming a likelihood of success, the district court points to the wealth of video and written evidence submitted proving the existence of the policy and testimony of ICE showing that they fail to conduct any escape risk analysis. “The Court therefore finds that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that the Government has engaged in a pattern, practice, and policy of conducting no escape risk analysis at all, relying solely on unlawful status to determine escape risk, or basing the escape risk on false assertions. And Plaintiffs are thus likely to succeed in showing that the Government’s Escape Risk Policy violates the clear dictates of Section 1357 and its corresponding regulation in violation of the APA.”
As to irreparable harm, the district court again points to the plethora of evidence of the Escape Risk Policy finding that Plaintiffs’ members risk re-detention subject to that Policy “and the ensuing detention (that would stem from an unlawful arrest) naturally constitutes irreparable harm.”
Balance of Equities and Public Interest
Where the nonmoving party is a government entity, the last two Winter factors merge. The district court found that the Plaintiffs are not seeking to usurp the Government’s function in exercising its immigration enforcement responsibilities but simply requesting that ICE abide by its statutory and regulatory responsibilities in its actions in this district. The district court concludes that the Government “cannot reasonably assert that it is harmed in any legally cognizable sense by being enjoined to comply with the law.”
The Lyons Memorandum
One of the central issues in this litigation is the issuance of various directives from former ICE Director Todd Lyons, including his July 8, 2025 memo stripping bond hearing eligibility for noncitizens. However, the focus of this Preliminary Injunction Order is Lyons’ January 28, 2026 memo. Plaintiffs asked the Court to enjoin ICE from relying on the Lyons Memo with respect to the Government’s obligation to conduct a “likelihood of escape” analysis. As the district court points out, that 2026 memo introduces an erroneous interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1357.
The memo contains, for example, the following language: “The circumstances of [a noncitizen]’s failure to comply with the immigration laws of the United States or unwillingness to cooperate with an immigration officer’s lawful authority to enforce those laws may support the conclusion that the [noncitizen] is likely to escape . . .” The court makes short riff of that language; “This court concludes that the Lyons memo, to the extent that it suggests unlawful status alone can satisfy the likelihood of escape analysis is contrary to Section 1357 and its corresponding statute.”
Judge Frimpong’s Order also notes that the guidance provided in the memo is often at odds with direction given in the field. As the Order finds, deportation officers have been instructed that they may conduct warrantless arrests of individuals without consideration of the individual’s likelihood of escape.
Implications and Path Forward
The long and winding road continues, and the journey is far from over. The Preliminary Injunction, as the name indicates, is preliminary and the class certification will likely be challenged, both at the trial level via summary judgment or trial and/or in subsequent appellate proceedings. The two additional class certification requests will be opposed in a similar fashion. Nonetheless, the decision to amend the complaint to add Fourth and Fifth Amendment claims and seek a new and different preliminary injunction focusing on the lack of individualized escape-risk analyses when ICE conducts detentions opened the door for the creation of a new class-based evidentiary record.
Already, the current record challenges Justice Kavanaugh’s “common sense” conclusory analysis regarding how “reasonable suspicion” detentions are made and ICE’s reliance on the four factors test first found untenable in Judge Frimpong’s original temporary restraining order and which he stayed. The record now clearly establishes that contrary to Kavanaugh’s assertion, ICE does not “promptly let the individual go if ICE/CBP learn that the individual they detain is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States.” Second, ICE’s own 30(b)(6) testimony confirms what Justice Sotomayor had indicated with approval from the trial briefing, that the four factors, even when taken together, are no more indicative of illegal presence in the country than of legal presence.
Many commentators anticipate that several of the issues raised will once again be appealed to the Ninth Circuit and eventually back up to the U.S. Supreme Court. While the evidentiary record is now more fulsome and clearly documents the violation of Section 1357 and individualized reasonable suspicion, Justice Kavanaugh and his conservative colleagues will most likely provide significant deference to the Trump administration’s ongoing mass deportation agenda and seek to rule on the merits of alleged “common sense” detentions to justify the continuation of ICE’s “Kavanaugh Stops” and continued race-based profiling in its practice.
[1] In tandem with that Motion, the Court is also hearing a Motion for Class Certification for two other classes, (1) the “Suspicionless Stops Class”, defined as all persons who, since June 6, 2025, have been or will be subjected to a detentive stop by federal agents or officers for purposes of immigration enforcement in this District based on their apparent status as low-income or working class and Latino, instead of a pre-stop, individualized assessment of reasonable suspicion that the person to be stopped is (a) engaged in an offense against the United States, or (b) is a noncitizen unlawfully present in the United States, and (2) the “First Discriminatory Treatment Class” defined as “All persons in this District who, since June 6, 2025, have been or will be subjected to a detentive stop by federal agents or officers at least in part because of their apparent Latino race, color, and/or ethnicity, other than at a port of entry, checkpoint, or other functional equivalent of the border, or in connection with a known target description if there are other objective bases to believe that the individual is the target.”