Welcome to our October newsletter! In October, the United States Supreme Court vacated a preliminary injunction issued by a District Court in California. The District Court’s preliminary injunction prevented federal immigration enforcement officers from continuing their recent practice of stopping people based on criteria that was alleged to be racial profiling. The Supreme Court reversed the District Court after the Department of Justice sought an emergency appeal on what has come to be known as “the shadow docket.” The case is Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo 606 US ___ (2025). Before we go on to discuss what the decision meant in terms of racial profiling and pretext stops, it’s worth taking a moment to discuss the process. The case arose as a result of people of Latino origin being stopped by immigration enforcement officers in Los Angeles. Their legal advocates went to federal court to stop the conduct, alleging the stops were based on racial profiling and not reasonable suspicion to believe that any specific individuals were unlawfully in the country. The federal court, the United States District Court for the Central District of California, held a hearing to determine what was happening. Following the hearing the District Court concluded, as noted by Justice Sotomayor in her dissent from the reversal granted by the Court, (T)he Government was stopping individuals based solely on four factors: (1) their apparent race or ethnicity; (2) whether they spoke Spanish or English with an accent; (3) the type of location at which they were found (such as a car wash or bus stop); and (4) the type of job they appeared to work. Concluding that stops based on these four factors alone, even when taken together, could not satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of reasonable suspicion, the District Court temporarily enjoined1 the Government from continuing its pattern of unlawful mass arrests while it considered whether longer-term relief was appropriate. Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, 606 US at ___ (page). What does this have to do with pretext or secondary stops? Pretext stops are often seen as stops that are based on racial profiling. The statistics bear this out. As we have discussed before, analyses from across the country and those areas in New York that have sought to analyze these stops uniformly conclude that Black and brown people are stopped more, searched more, and subjected to force more than white people. One of the concerns with the emergency or “shadow” docket is that the Supreme Court does not indicate the basis for its decision. In this case, there is no written decision. Instead, there is a concurrence by Justice Kavanaugh, and a dissent by Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson. So there is no way to determine whether the injunction was overruled based on a “standing” issue (do the parties have the right to sue for the relief they are seeking), or an interpretation of the Constitution. The grave concern is that this case is an indication that the Court will support racial profiling and oppose efforts to end it. If the Supreme Court concludes that racial profiling is acceptable (which we contend is in contradiction to the United States Constitution), or that those profiled have no right to challenge it, or that the bases given by the DOJ in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo are not racial profiling, there will be little recourse on the federal level to challenge pretext stops. But there are ways of doing it at the state level, and our effort becomes even more compelling. Because our legislation will be one way to reduce racial disparities in stops and limit or end racial profiling of drivers. Additionally, New York State has a constitution, and as federal constitutional principles are being modified and limited, we will have to rely more and more on the New York State Constitution. Sincerely, Jill Paperno | 
