Plaintiffs speak out after recent appeals court ruling on SoCal immigration raids

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's immigration raids spoke publicly for the first time Monday, calling a recent appeals court ruling a major victory for Los Angeles.

Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld maintaining a temporary restraining order against indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in seven Southern California counties, including L.A.

"We're proud to be with our fellow Angelenos and families all across Southern California in a movement that is resisting unjust and illegal policies of this administration, including the horrific ICE raids that devastated the city earlier this summer," said Chandra Bhatnagar with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.

We also heard from the lawsuit's lead plaintiff Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, 54, of Pasadena, who told reporters during a news conference Monday that he works as a day laborer and came to the U.S. looking for "dignity and safety" and a chance to provide for his family.

He spoke about being taken by agents in Pasadena in June.

"I was simply standing at a bus stop waiting to get to work like I do every day, then without warning, several unmarked cars showed up, men jumped out, grabbed me and my co-workers and took us away like we were criminals," Vasquez Perdomo recalled. "They didn't tell us who they were. They didn't explain why they abducted us."

The men who took Vasquez Perdomo never identified themselves to the plaintiffs, never stated they were immigration officers authorized to make arrests, never stated that they had arrest warrants and never informed the plaintiffs of the bases for their arrests, the lawsuit alleges.

Vasquez Perdomo said he became a plaintiff in the case because "I don't want silence to be my story. I want justice, for me and for every other person whose humanity has been denied.''

The roving raids targeting car washes, parking lots where day laborers gather and garment factories disrupted immigrant communities throughout the region for weeks in June and July, causing widespread fear.

On July 11, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong granted temporary restraining orders preventing the government from stopping individuals in violation of the Fourth Amendment and requiring the government to provide detained individuals with access to counsel.

The government appealed the TRO pertaining to immigration stops and requested that the court pause the order while the appeal is pending. A three-judge 9th Circuit panel, all Democratic appointees, denied the request after hearing arguments in San Francisco last week.

Los Angeles Worker Center Network Executive Director Armando Gudino said the ruling marks a major victory for immigrant rights.

He said the court's decision to let their case move forward is a resounding affirmation of what they've always known: being an immigrant, speaking Spanish, or simply showing up to work is not probable cause.

Vasquez Perdomo, who almost broke down in tears during Monday's news conference, said no human being on American soil should be subjected to inhumane conditions he and others witnessed while being detained.

He said they were chained up like animals and place in a small room with 52 other people with no bathroom.

An eventual appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is expected, where six of the nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents.

President Donald Trump had not personally commented on the ruling as of Sunday, but White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson took issue with the ruling.

"No federal judge has the authority to dictate immigration policy -- that authority rests with Congress and the president,'' Jackson said in a statement to City News Service. "Enforcement operations require careful planning and execution; skills far beyond the purview or jurisdiction of any judge. The Trump administration looks forward to continuing to implement its immigration policies lawfully.''

"This is a victory for Los Angeles, and this is a victory because the people of Los Angeles stood together,'' Mayor Karen Bass told reporters Friday night outside Getty House.

"I think the administration might have believed that this was going to divide our city, that our city was going to go at each other in division, but we did not. We stood strong, and I am very happy to say that us standing strong ... gave the court the resolve to uphold this decision.''

During arguments before the appeals court, U.S. Department of Justice Attorney Jacob Roth insisted that the immigration stops -- which began June 6 in the Los Angeles area -- were perfectly legal, carefully targeted and conducted with probable cause to make arrests.

"The officers are instructed to find reasonable suspicion before an arrest,'' Roth told the panel, adding that Frimpong's restraining order "is fundamentally flawed on multiple levels.''

The suit also claims that federal officials have unconstitutionally arrested and detained people in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration.

U.S. officials have denied the presence of a quota.

Trump administration officials have defended the raids, pointing to the president's many statements during the 2024 campaign pledging to carry out mass deportations of those here illegally, and touting the alleged criminal records of some detainees.

Frimpong has scheduled a hearing in the case on Sept. 24 in downtown L.A.

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