A federal judge has barred immigration agents from making warrantless civil arrests across much of Southern California, including Los Angeles County and the communities of Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Holmby Hills.

U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued the preliminary injunction Sept. 2 in the case Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin. The order was unsealed last week, when it landed on the public docket.

The ruling covers the Central District of California, which spans Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Under the order, immigration agents must get a warrant before making a civil arrest or first determine and document that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.

Frimpong found that the government routinely skipped that escape-risk analysis. Plaintiffs' attorneys reviewed 113 arrest narratives produced by the government and found that at least 89 contained either no escape-risk assessment or boilerplate template language, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"How can you say someone is an escape risk by ignoring the fact that they have U.S. citizen kids, a job here, or their wife lives here?" ACLU of Southern California attorney Mohammad Tajsar told the Los Angeles Times.

The order also bars agents from relying on a January 2026 memorandum from former acting ICE director Todd Lyons. The court found that memo illegally suggested that merely being undocumented was enough to establish a likelihood of escape, as reported by ABC7.

The ruling also certified a class of individuals arrested by federal agents without a warrant and without an individualized escape-risk assessment, covering arrests made since June 6, 2025. The federal statute at issue, 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(2), requires agents to have probable cause both that a person is in the country unlawfully and that they are likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.

The lawsuit was filed in July 2025 by five individuals and three organizations: the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA). The ACLU of Southern California and Public Counsel served as counsel for the plaintiffs.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement Sept. 16 that the City of Los Angeles had joined the lawsuit, leading a coalition of more than 20 local governments across Southern California. Bass called the ruling an important protection against warrantless arrests that she said have racially targeted Angelenos.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) disputed the ruling. In a statement to Fox News, DHS said agents have authority for lawful arrests under federal statute and that the Supreme Court has already vindicated the agency's practices.

That reference points to a prior chapter in the case. Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order in July 2025 barring agents from stopping people without reasonable suspicion, but the U.S. Supreme Court stayed that order in September 2025, according to the Associated Press.

The new preliminary injunction is narrower, focused on the requirement that agents conduct an individualized escape-risk analysis before any warrantless civil arrest. Frimpong denied the government's request for a 14-day stay while it considered an appeal.

The ruling is preliminary and does not resolve the underlying claims in the case. No trial date has been announced.