Escape From Judge Frimpong
11th September 2025
I have written several posts on California Federal District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong’s temporary restraining order more or less preventing ICE from operating in California’s Central District — the district covering the seven counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura. The counties’ population of nearly 20 million people is the largest of any federal judicial district in the country. I wrote about Judge Frimpong’s crimping of ICE in posts that are accessible here. It’s crazy, baby. That’s my view.
Heather Mac Donald took up the case and the mysteries of Judge Frimpong herself in the City Journal column “Using a Double Standard on Race to Handicap ICE.” Subhead: “A federal judge ruled that agents impermissibly used race in questioning suspected illegal aliens—but she’s hardly color-blind in her own courtroom.” As one would expect from Ms. Mac Donald, it is an excellent column.
The government appealed Judge Frimpong’s order to the Ninth Circuit. The appeal remains pending, although the government has not received the emergency relief it sought from the court while the appeal is pending. The government therefore took its request for relief to the Supreme Court.