Brief

The City Attorney filed this matter on December 11, 2025, initiating affirmative litigation against the federal government. Council adopted the item 11-0-4 on February 11, 2026, with four members absent. The matter then returned to Budget and Finance Committee in September 2026 with an updated City Attorney report, currently pending committee review for resource allocation and implementation oversight.

Full summary

The City of Los Angeles, through City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, intervened in a federal class action lawsuit — Pedro Vasquez Perdomo et al. v. Markwayne Mullin et al. (No. 2:25-cv-05605-MEMF, C.D. Cal.) — challenging what the City characterizes as the federal government's unlawful immigration enforcement practices in the Los Angeles area. The original complaint was filed by five named individuals and three membership organizations (Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights) along with the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, alleging the federal government conducted suspicionless stops, warrantless arrests without required escape risk assessments, and violated detainees' due process and access-to-counsel rights. Five days after the complaint was filed, the City Attorney organized a broad coalition of local governments to intervene as co-parties, ultimately including the County of Los Angeles and more than twenty other cities. Pro bono co-counsel Munger Tolles and Olson is supporting the City in the litigation. The case has produced three separate motions for preliminary injunction. An existing injunction already requires the federal government to allow attorney access to Room B-18 of the Federal Building at 300 North Los Angeles Street seven days a week. A second motion, focused on warrantless arrests, resulted in a significant ruling on September 2, 2026, when Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong granted a preliminary injunction — unsealed September 16, 2026 — barring federal agents in the Central District from making warrantless civil immigration arrests without first making an individualized, particularized determination that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained. The court found that the federal government operated a coordinated set of policies effectively treating unlawful immigration status alone as sufficient justification for warrantless arrest, in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1357(a)(2) and its implementing regulation. The court also enjoined federal agents from relying on a January 28, 2026 ICE memorandum by then-Acting Director Todd Lyons to the extent it suggested unlawful status alone satisfies the escape risk standard, and required agents to document specific facts supporting any escape risk determination in each arrest narrative. The federal government indicated its intent to appeal to the Ninth Circuit; the court denied a requested stay. A third motion, targeting what the City calls suspicionless stops and racial profiling targeting Latino residents, was filed August 5, 2026, and was scheduled for a hearing before Judge Frimpong on September 24, 2026. The litigation has also been marked by serious discovery disputes. Depositions of ICE and CBP officers revealed that many agents used personal phones for work communications, yet the federal government initially claimed no phones had been imaged and agents did not use personal devices for official business. A magistrate judge ordered forensic imaging of agents' phones; the federal government failed to comply. On July 28, 2026, Judge Frimpong found the government in civil contempt, imposing a $500-per-day fine and ordering reimbursement of plaintiffs' attorneys' fees. The magistrate judge separately found ICE's discovery noncompliance egregious and sanctioned the government, warning that defense attorneys could face personal sanctions for continued failures. The Council adopted the file 11-0-4 on February 11, 2026, authorizing the City's participation in the litigation. The City Attorney's September 16, 2026, status report was referred to the Budget and Finance Committee the following day, where it remains pending. The file is open through September 2028.

Activity (11)

• 2026-09-17 City Attorney document(s) referred to Budget and Finance Committee.
• 2026-09-16 Document submitted by City Attorney, dated September 16, 2026.
• 2026-02-13 Council action final.
• 2026-02-11 Council adopted item, subject to reconsideration, pursuant to Council Rule 51.
• 2026-02-06 City Clerk scheduled item for Council on February 11, 2026.
• 2026-02-03 Budget and Finance Committee discussed the matter in Closed Session, and noted and filed the item in Open Session.
• 2026-01-30 Budget and Finance Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on February 3, 2026.
• 2026-01-20 Budget and Finance Committee continued the item to a date to be determined.
• 2026-01-16 Budget and Finance Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on January 20, 2026.
• 2025-12-12 City Attorney document(s) referred to Budget and Finance Committee.
• 2025-12-11 Document submitted by City Attorney, dated December 11, 2025.

Documents (5)

• 2026-09-16 Report from City Attorney · report
• 2026-02-13 Council Action · council_action
• 2026-02-03 Report from Budget and Finance Committee · report
• 2026-01-20 Speaker Card(s) · speaker_card
• 2025-12-11 Report from City Attorney · report

Council votes (1)

• 2026-02-11 Vote — 11-0-4 · Regular