What happened in noem v. perdomo?
Executive summary
The Supreme Court, on September 8, 2025, granted the federal government’s emergency request to stay a district-court injunction that had limited Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “roving” stops in seven Southern California counties, effectively allowing agents to resume stops that rely on combinations of factors such as apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or accented English, presence at certain locations, and particular jobs while the litigation continues [1] [2]. The action was taken on the Court’s emergency “shadow docket,” produced minimal explanation, prompted a three‑justice dissent, and is explicitly a temporary procedural stay—not a final decision on the constitutionality of the challenged tactics [3] [4] [2].
1. What the lower courts did and why the injunction was issued
A federal district judge in the Central District of California issued an order in July 2025 barring ICE from conducting detentive investigative stops in Los Angeles and nearby counties that relied on a cluster of factors—apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or accented English, presence at locations where undocumented immigrants are said to gather, and employment in certain jobs—because plaintiffs alleged those practices amounted to a policy, pattern, or practice of stops without individualized reasonable suspicion [5] [2].
2. The Ninth Circuit and the emergency path to the Supreme Court
The government sought emergency relief from the Ninth Circuit and then from the Supreme Court after a Ninth Circuit panel initially denied the stay application under the four‑factor Nken framework; the Supreme Court summarily reversed that denial on September 8, 2025, granting the government’s stay request and halting the district court injunction while the merits proceed [6] [3].
3. What the Supreme Court did, and how it did it
The Court granted the stay via its emergency docket with no full merits briefing or oral argument, issuing a short order that stayed the district-court injunction and thereby permitted DHS to continue its enforcement operations in the Los Angeles area pending further proceedings; the majority provided little or no published reasoning, which critics call an opaque exercise of the shadow docket [1] [7] [4].
4. The Court’s allies and dissenters: who said what
Commentary and the available reports indicate the stay drew a 6–3 alignment in favor of the government in many accounts, while Justice Sotomayor authored a vigorous dissent joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson criticizing the majority’s use of the emergency docket and warning that the stay prevents the district court from resolving serious allegations of race‑ and language‑based stopping practices [8] [2] [4].
5. Legal issues the stay touches on (but does not resolve)
The stay implicates core Fourth Amendment questions—what constitutes reasonable suspicion for detentive stops—and procedural standing doctrines such as City of Los Angeles v. Lyons; the Supreme Court’s order did not decide those merits, instead indicating via stay practice that the government made a sufficient showing of likely success and irreparable harm for emergency relief, though scholars and some Justices disagree about whether balancing equities is properly performed at the emergency stage [3] [6] [1].
6. Consequences, competing narratives, and limits of the ruling
Advocates and legal groups portray the stay as a “green light” for racial profiling that will expose Latino workers, Spanish speakers, and communities to expanded stops and potential detentions [9] [8] [10], while DHS framed the result as a narrow victory allowing lawful enforcement to continue and asserting that longstanding Fourth Amendment precedent governs reasonable‑suspicion analysis [7] [11]; importantly, the Supreme Court’s action is temporary and not a final endorsement of the government’s practices—the district court and potentially the Ninth Circuit and Supreme Court will still confront the merits in the ordinary course [6] [3].
7. Transparency, the shadow docket critique, and what remains unknown
Major controversy centers on the Court’s use of the shadow docket: the stay was issued with little explanation and no full briefing, leaving open whether five or six Justices supported it, what legal tests the majority applied, and how the Court will address the Fourth Amendment and standing questions if the case reaches full merits review; commentators say the lack of reasoning obscures the scope and durability of the ruling’s practical effects [4] [6] [8].