Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto held a news conference Friday announcing the latest developments in a lawsuit against the Trump administration's alleged illegal immigration enforcement activities.
She said her office filed an amended complaint adding the cities of Pasadena, Santa Monica, Culver City, Pico Rivera, Montebello, Monterey Park and West Hollywood to their motion to intervene in the case of Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem.
"We filed a motion to amend our intervention complaint, and assuming that the motion to amend our complaint in intervention is granted, which we believe it will be, we then have the county of Los Angeles and a total of 20 cities here," she said.
The lawsuit was filed last month by the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel and other immigration and civil rights attorneys. Plaintiffs alleged ICE and Customs and Border Protection engaged in "unconstitutional and unlawful stops, roundups and raids without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.''
On Thursday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to halt a court order restricting immigration stops.
The emergency petition comes after an appeals court refused to lift a temporary restraining order barring authorities from stopping or arresting people based solely on factors like what language they speak or where they work.
The move is the latest in a string of emergency appeals from the Trump administration to the high court, which has recently sided with the Republican president in a number of high-profile cases.
"What I would describe it as is asking the Supreme Court for a license to profile and randomly arrest our residents," said Feldstein Soto.
The mayors of multiple cites joined the city attorney Thursday in speaking out against the raids, including Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson and Santa Ana Mayor Valerie Amezcua.
"We stand proudly with our immigrant community and the other local cities in support of this lawsuit," said Amezcua. "We want to thank the city of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and the city attorney for leading this effort. We also want to thank the county of Los Angeles and all of the other cities who are joining the lawsuit. This is not just a legal fight, it's a moral one."
This comes as federal agents were seen in Lake Balboa on Thursday. A woman who spoke with Eyewitness News said she was horrified when the agents started detaining people.
"I was selling my merchandise then all of sudden, they got out and they started arresting people and they took my co-worker away," she told ABC7 in Spanish.
Further details on the reported raid weren't immediately available.
The Justice Department argued that federal agents are allowed to consider certain factors when ramping up enforcement of immigration laws in Los Angeles, an area it considers a "top enforcement priority."
Trump officials asked the justices to immediately halt the order from U.S. District Judge Maame E. Frimpong in Los Angeles. She found a "mountain of evidence" that enforcement tactics were violating the U.S. Constitution in what the plaintiffs called "roving patrols."
Trump's Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to immediately halt Frimpong's order, arguing that it puts a "straitjacket" on agents in an area with a large number of people in the U.S. illegally.
"No one thinks that speaking Spanish or working in construction always creates reasonable suspicion ... But in many situations, such factors-alone or in combination-can heighten the likelihood that someone is unlawfully present in the United States," Sauer wrote.
He also argued that the order "flouted" a recent Supreme Court decision restricting judges from handing down universal injunctions, since it restricted stops in the entire region rather than only the plaintiffs.
Department of Homeland Security attorneys have said immigration officers target people based on illegal presence in the U.S., not skin color, race or ethnicity.
The order from Frimpong, who was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden, bars authorities from using factors like apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, presence at a location such as a tow yard or car wash, or someone's occupation as the only basis for reasonable suspicion for detention.
The Los Angeles region has been a battleground for the Trump administration after its aggressive immigration strategy spurred protests and the deployment of the National Guards and Marines for several weeks.
Plaintiffs on the lawsuit before Frimpong included three detained immigrants and two U.S. citizens. One was Los Angeles resident Brian Gavidia, who was shown in a June 13 video being seized by federal agents as he yelled, "I was born here in the states, East LA bro!"
He was released about 20 minutes later after showing agents his identification, as was another citizen stopped at a car wash, according to the lawsuit.
