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For decades, federal officers have had to rely on more than race or ethnicity to stop and question someone over citizenship. That is now being tested.
Oct. 24, 2025Updated 12:21 p.m. ET
Again and again in Chicago and elsewhere in recent weeks, masked federal agents have accosted people who appear to be Latino, and have confronted them with questions about their immigration status.
Targeting people for immigration enforcement based on race or ethnicity alone was forbidden by the U.S. Supreme Court in a unanimous decision 50 years ago. After all, it’s impossible to determine the immigration statuses of people simply by looking at them. So for decades, agents seeking to question people about their citizenship were supposed to rely on more than just appearance.
But as President Trump has intensified his mass deportation campaign, roving patrols that have targeted predominantly Latino communities have become a key part of the administration’s playbook. And whether the tactics are legal appears to be an open question, one likely to be decided by the Supreme Court.
Lawsuits challenging the administration’s sweeps in Los Angeles and elsewhere are making their way through the courts. The outcomes could redefine the limits on the discretion officers have to stop, question and detain people over their immigration statuses and how much race and ethnicity can play into those decisions.
“We are in nebulous land,” said Mark Fleming, a lawyer at the National Immigrant Justice Center, which is representing plaintiffs in Chicago. “We have never seen this type of enforcement on the streets ever.”
