Judge Restricts Warrantless Immigration Arrests in Seven Southern California Counties

The order requires more than suspected unlawful presence

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge has restricted immigration officers from making warrantless civil arrests across seven Southern California counties unless they first have individualized reason to believe the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.

U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong granted the preliminary injunction September 2. The decision was unsealed Wednesday, September 16. The Associated Press reports that the order requires officers to evaluate the total circumstances known before an arrest and document the specific facts supporting both suspected unlawful presence and escape risk.

The ruling does not eliminate warrantless immigration arrests. It limits when covered officers may use that authority and rejects the idea that suspected unlawful status, standing alone, automatically proves a person is likely to escape.

Federal law already contains an escape-risk condition

The governing statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(2), authorizes a warrantless civil immigration arrest inside the United States when an officer has reason to believe a person is present unlawfully and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained. The injunction focuses on how officers apply and record that second requirement.

AP reports that the judge ordered officers to document the particularized facts supporting their pre-arrest escape-risk finding. She denied the government's request to delay the injunction for two weeks while it considered an appeal.

This is preliminary relief, not a final judgment resolving every claim in the lawsuit. The federal government may challenge the order, and later court action could change its reach or requirements.

Court evidence included arrest reports, depositions and video

CalMatters reports that plaintiffs used government directives, agent depositions, arrest narratives, text messages and body-camera video to challenge the arrest practices. The judge found ample evidence of an ongoing practice that failed to perform the required likelihood-of-escape analysis, according to the published ruling excerpts.

In one incident described by CalMatters, an arrest report said a man appeared ready to run, while the video reportedly showed him walking normally before questioning began. Another worker was taken for processing and released after agents determined he was a lawful permanent resident. Those examples were evidence considered by the court; they do not establish that every immigration arrest in the region was unlawful.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately provide AP with a response. Government attorneys previously argued that the large-scale operations at issue had ended and that federal law does not expressly require a written record for every escape-risk determination.

The injunction covers seven counties—but not Kern County

The order applies within the federal Central District of California: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Bakersfield and Kern County are not on that list.

That boundary matters. Kern County residents should not assume this particular injunction directly governs an encounter in Bakersfield. Federal statutes, the Constitution and other court orders may still apply, but the legal effect can depend on location and the facts of an individual case.

The ruling also should not be confused with a complete prohibition on immigration questioning, stops or arrests. It concerns the conditions for covered warrantless civil arrests and the evidence officers must have before making them.

A prior Supreme Court stay did not decide this new injunction

The same broader lawsuit previously produced an order restricting certain roving immigration stops. The U.S. Supreme Court stayed that earlier order in September 2025 while litigation continued.

The newly unsealed injunction addresses warrantless arrests and the statutory escape-risk requirement. It does not restore every part of the earlier stop restrictions, decide all constitutional claims or end the underlying case.

The next material developments are whether the government appeals, whether a higher court pauses the injunction and how federal agencies document compliance across the seven covered counties.

About the image

The accompanying photograph was taken by Charles Reed for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Philadelphia in 2018. As an official federal-government work, it is in the public domain and is available through Wikimedia Commons.

It is used only as institutional context. It does not depict the Southern California plaintiffs, any arrest examined in the case, Judge Frimpong, the September 2026 injunction or enforcement activity in Kern County.