California’s top law enforcement official has weighed in on Monday‘s controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling on immigration enforcement.
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta condemned the decision, which clears the way for immigration agents to stop and question people they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally based solely on information such as their perceived race or place of employment.
Speaking at a news conference Monday in downtown L.A., Bonta said he agreed with claims the ACLU made in its lawsuit against the Trump administration. He called indiscriminate tactics used to make immigration arrests a violation of the 4th Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
Bonta said he thinks it is unconstitutional “for ICE agents, federal immigration officers, to use race, the inability to speak English, location or perceived occupation to … stop and detain, search, seize Californians.”
He also decried what he described as the Supreme Court’s increasing reliance on its emergency docket, which he said often obscures the justices’ decision-making.
“It’s disappointing,” he said. “And the emergency docket has been used more and more. You often don’t know who has voted and how. There’s no argument. There’s no written opinion.”
Bonta called Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s opinion “very disturbing.”
The Trump-appointed justice argued that because many people who do day labor in fields such as construction or farming, engagement in such work could be useful in helping immigrant agents determine which people to stop.
Bonta said the practice enables “the use of race to potentially discriminate,” saying “it is disturbing and it is troubling.”
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