Background: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaking to Fox News Sunday on July 13, 2025 (Fox News /YouTube). Inset: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducting a raid (Fox News/YouTube).
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appeared on Fox News over the weekend to criticize a recent decision by a federal judge in California. The ruling prevented the Trump administration from carrying out “roving” immigration enforcement raids that relied on the “apparent race or ethnicity” of individuals being targeted. Noem condemned the ruling as “ridiculous” and “wrong,” while the government filed an appeal notice on Sunday.
“We’ve witnessed this across the nation repeatedly, where judges become political,” Noem stated during an interview on “Fox News Sunday” with Shannon Bream.
“It’s not their job,” Noem told Bream. “I hope they can bring some dignity back to the bench, because we’re lacking it now, for many of these federal judges.”
In a 52-page order, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong — a Joe Biden appointee — granted two temporary restraining orders on Friday: one for individuals whose constitutional rights have allegedly been violated by deportation dragnets in Southern California, the second for attorneys who claim they are being blocked from meeting and conferring with their clients, also in violation of the Constitution.
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“Roving patrols without reasonable suspicion violate the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and denying access to lawyers violates the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution,” the order reads. “What the federal government would have this Court believe — in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case — is that none of this is actually happening.”
Noem said Sunday that the government would be appealing Frimpong’s order, with DOJ lawyers filing an official notice of appeal later in the day with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
WATCH: @Sec_Noem calls the federal judge’s temporary restraining order against ICE operations in California ridiculous: “We will appeal.” pic.twitter.com/AH1kKIpNoz
— Fox News Sunday (@FoxNewsSunday) July 13, 2025
“This federal judge’s ruling is ridiculous,” Noem blasted. “We never ran our operations that way. We always built our operations, our investigations, on case work … and that is always how this has been done,” she said. “It’s been done exactly how law enforcement has operated for many years in this country, and ICE is out there making sure we get the worst of the worst off the streets.”
Describing what she thinks will happen in the case, Noem said, “We will win, because [Frimpong’s] wrong. We’ve never targeted individuals based on those qualifications that he laid out.”
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