- “Reasonable suspicion is a bedrock principle of civil rights. This opinion eviscerates this foundational constitutional requirement for arrest and detention.” – Bianca Sierra Wolff, executive director of LCCRSF
By Vanguard Staff
SAN FRANCISCO – The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF) condemned the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling that allows federal immigration officers to conduct stops without reasonable suspicion in California, calling it a devastating setback for civil rights and an endorsement of racial profiling.
Bianca Sierra Wolff, executive director of LCCRSF, said the ruling in Vasquez-Perdomo v. Noem gave immigration agents “a green light to resume their campaign of fear and racial profiling across Southern California.” She added that the Court “effectively sanctions the Trump administration’s unconstitutional approach of stopping individuals based on nothing more than their apparent race, the language they speak, or the job they work.”
Wolff said the principle of reasonable suspicion is fundamental to civil rights protections, and the decision undermines that safeguard. “Reasonable suspicion is a bedrock principle of civil rights. This opinion eviscerates this foundational constitutional requirement for arrest and detention,” she said.
She pointed to Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent in the case. “As Justice Sotomayor stated in her powerful dissent, we should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone for looking Latino, speaking Spanish, and working a low-wage job,” Wolff said.
Sotomayor wrote that the majority’s decision “abandons one of the central bulwarks against arbitrary state action” and “permits federal agents to substitute prejudice for proof.” She warned that the ruling would allow “discrimination in its rawest form to become official practice under the Constitution.”
According to Wolff, the ruling empowers federal agents to continue spreading fear within immigrant communities. “The Supreme Court has empowered federal agents to continue their strategy of building fear among our communities. Today’s decision invites the Trump administration to rely on racial profiling to intimidate and detain our friends and neighbors,” she said.
Despite the setback, LCCRSF pledged to keep fighting. “This ruling is a devastating setback for civil rights, but it is not the end of this fight. We will use every tool at our disposal to oppose discriminatory profiling in the San Francisco Bay Area, and continue to litigate, advocate, and defend the Fourth Amendment rights of every person in our community,” Wolff said.
She also reassured immigrant families that they will not face this challenge alone. “You are not alone. We are your neighbors, your advocates, and your partners in this struggle. We will continue to fight for a community where all families can feel secure and where everyone’s constitutional rights are respected,” she said.
Wolff concluded that the group’s commitment remains firm. “LCCRSF’s commitment to the San Francisco Bay Area’s immigrant community is unwavering,” she said.
Uh, huh. Are there a lot of Norwegians, for example, crossing over the border illegally? Standing outside of Home Depot seeking day labor work?
Maybe they can set a trap for them. (Trying to see what foods Norwegians like on the Internet.) In any case, isn’t that one of the countries whose citizens have a ridiculous accent in cartoons? (That’s pretty much where I get a lot of my “information” from.)
:-)
Just pointing out once again that crossing the border is only one way people enter the country and not necessarily the most frequent. I’ll also point out that the vast majority of Latinos are not undocumented.
Yes – I learned (from you, actually) that a lot of people overstay their VISAs.
As far as Latinos are concerned, I’m well-aware of that. But the combination of factors listed above leads to a high probability, at least, of that particular sub-group being in the country illegally.
California and much of the West was, after all, part of Spain and then Mexico. (Something that seems to be purposefully overlooked in regard to the narrative surrounding displacement of sporadic tribes in previous centuries.) In any case, what is now California has continued to have a large Hispanic population both before, and after it became a state.
The reason it’s purposefully overlooked (in regard to tribes) seems to be related to a desire to blame “whitey” for everything. But “whiteys” weren’t the original “colonizers” in the West, despite how some want to portray that.
I think you better re-read your history.
From AI: “Yes, Spain claimed and controlled vast territories in North America, including most of the present-day American West, which became part of Mexico upon its independence from Spain. After Mexico gained its independence in 1821, much of this territory, which included California, Texas, and present-day Arizona, Nevada, and Utah, remained part of Mexico. However, after the Mexican-American War, Mexico ceded these territories to the United States in 1848 through the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.”
You’ve visited some of the remaining missions, right? And are familiar with the Alamo, etc.? (I was surprised to see that Texas also has Spanish missions.)
There are still references to Spanish land grants in California to this day, on various maps.
For that matter, tribes themselves displaced (sometimes killed) other tribes.
None of the facts support blaming “exclusively” whitey.
Oy. Ron you answered your own question. The Spanish were “white”
Really? The Spanish (and their descendants in Mexico) are “white” (and not Hispanic)? (Pretty sure that’s news to them, at times.)
How is the supposed racial profiling occurring, in regard to their descendants if they’re “white”?
Or are you claiming that the people coming from Mexico and South America are descendants of Incas and Aztecs – whom the Spanish largely killed-off?
ICE is targeting Incas and Aztecs?
Let me explain the birds and the bees to you. Once upon a time the Spanish accidently stumbled on North America. They were “white.” They encountered native peoples who were darker skinned. If you read historical accounts, you’d know that the native peoples were stunned to see “white man.”
Here is how the native people described encountering Cortes (who conquered Mexico City) – One of the most cited comes from Hernán Cortés’s entrance into Mexico, recorded in the Florentine Codex (a Nahua account compiled by Bernardino de Sahagún in the mid-16th century): “[They] said the strangers were white, with beards, long-haired, and their skins very white.”
How did the current peoples mostly become darker? Interracial sex! The Spanish either shtuped or raped the native people and their off-spring became dark, at one time there referred to as “Mestizo”
It is unbelievable that I have to explain this to you.
So, you’re saying that all people from Mexico and South America are the result of rape or conquest by “white” Spaniards, and that their skin color is “mixed” as a result.
And therefore, ICE is actually targeting descendants of “white” Spaniards, as well as Incas and Aztecs. But that it’s the “darker” color of the Aztecs and Incas which provides the basis for discrimination based on skin color. Interesting, but not sure it’s that simple.
People from Spain ARE considered Hispanic – just looked it up. Here’s what AI has to say regarding whether or not they’re “white”:
“This is a complex question because “white” is a social and cultural construct, not a scientific or biological one, and its meaning has changed over time and varies by location. However, the short answer is that Spaniards are European and generally considered white, though their identity is more complex than that.”
So perhaps (going forward) people need to explain what they mean by “white”, “white supremacy”, etc. (Maybe that school board trustee who was recalled was right, when she basically said that Asians engage in “white supremacy”.)
But I don’t think that’s what most people define as “white”, when they want to blame whitey. They’re looking for someone to blame whose ancestors came from the Northern parts of Europe, with even lighter skin than some other “whiteys”. No doubt, a biological adaptation to the relative lack of sunlight in Northern countries.
There’s all kinds of people who are sometimes classified as “white”, and sometimes not.
Actually, I do have one more question regarding this (my last one):
Since you’re stating that those from Mexico and South America are partly “non-white” (descendants of the native tribes, there), wouldn’t this nevertheless make them “non-white” colonizers in regard to taking over the mission system and lands in what is now California and the Western United States?
Or, is the portion of their “white” Spanish heritage to blame for that? (You’re probably too young to remember, but Flip Wilson’s tag line was, “the devil made me do it”. In this case, of course, the Spanish “whitey” portion of their heritage of those from Mexico.)
See, I knew there was some way to blame whitey for all of this. I’d make a great social justice warrior myself, if I didn’t find all of this absurd.