On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a 6–3 decision from its “shadow docket” that reversed a lower-court injunction and gave federal immigration agents in Los Angeles the green light to resume stops based on four deeply troubling criteria:
- Apparent race or ethnicity
- Speaking Spanish or accented English
- Presence in a particular location
- Type of work
The case, Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, is still working its way through the courts. But the message from this emergency ruling is unmistakable: the constitutional protections that once shielded immigrant communities from racial profiling are now conditional—and increasingly fragile.
Es incorrecto—inmoral y cívicamente ilegal—que ICE apunte a personas simplemente por hablar un idioma distinto al inglés. Sin embargo, eso es exactamente lo que permite la reciente decisión del Tribunal Supremo en el caso Noem v. Perdomo. Entre los cuatro factores que los agentes pueden usar para justificar detenciones migratorias en Los Ángeles se encuentra hablar español o inglés con acento—un precedente alarmante en un país donde el español es el segundo idioma más hablado, utilizado por más de 43% de los inmigrantes y casi 68 millones de personas en todo el país.
Seamos claros: esto no tiene que ver con la seguridad pública. Se trata de convertir el idioma en una herramienta de perfilamiento racial, origen y estatus migratorio percibido. Solo en el condado de Los Ángeles, más de 3.4 millones de residentes hablan español. No es una población marginada—es parte esencial del tejido cívico y cultural de la región. Tratar el español como sospechoso es criminalizar la identidad, la herencia y el sentido de pertenencia.
Como hijo de inmigrantes peruanos, crecí navegando entre dos mundos—traduciendo para mis padres, adaptándome en las aulas, y aprendiendo que el idioma podía ser tanto un puente como una barrera. Hoy, al criar a mis hijos junto a mi esposa Adriana, ciudadana naturalizada nacida en Colombia, les enseñamos a abrazar ambos idiomas. Pero ¿cómo explicarles que hablar español en público podría convertirlos en blanco de detención?
La ofensiva policial de la administración Trump comenzó en junio de 2025, con agentes del ICE realizando patrullajes itinerantes por el sur de California. Rápidamente surgieron demandas, citando más de 2300 detenciones —incluyendo ciudadanos estadounidenses y residentes legales— en lugares como estacionamientos de Home Depot, paradas de autobús y obras de construcción. La jueza Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong emitió una orden de restricción temporal en julio, prohibiendo al ICE usar la raza, el idioma, el tipo de trabajo o la ubicación como únicos factores para las detenciones. El Noveno Circuito la ratificó. Pero la orden sin firmar de la Corte Suprema ahora ha levantado esas protecciones.
La jueza Sotomayor, acompañada por los jueces Kagan y Jackson, calificó la decisión de "inadmisible irreconciliable con las garantías constitucionales de nuestra nación". Tiene razón. Este fallo no solo erosiona la Cuarta Enmienda, sino que también codifica la sospecha basada en la identidad. Les dice a millones de latinos, inmigrantes y trabajadores: su idioma, su trabajo, su color de piel y su ubicación son suficientes para convertirlos en blanco.
El caso podría regresar al Tribunal Supremo para una revisión completa. Pero el daño ya está hecho. Y si periodistas, defensores y líderes cívicos no se mantienen firmes, este se expandirá—primero por California, luego por todo el país.
Esta decisión no solo debilita las protecciones constitucionales—envía un mensaje de que la diversidad lingüística es una amenaza, no una fortaleza. Socava los ideales de una democracia pluralista. Les dice a millones de estadounidenses que sus voces—literalmente—no son bienvenidas.
Para familias como la mía, esto no es solo un cambio legal—es una ruptura cívica. Socava la confianza en las autoridades, desestabiliza comunidades y envía al país el mensaje de que los derechos constitucionales son negociables. Que el perfilamiento es política pública. Que la justicia es selectiva.
Estamos enseñando a nuestros hijos a sentirse orgullosos de su herencia, a hablar ambos idiomas, a conocer sus derechos. Pero también les estamos enseñando cómo mantenerse seguros en un país que cada vez más percibe su identidad como una amenaza.
Debemos rechazar la idea de que el inglés es el único idioma legítimo. Nuestra democracia es multilingüe. Nuestras comunidades son multilingües. Y nuestras leyes deben reflejar esa realidad—no castigarla.
¿Qué tipo de país somos cuando la sospecha se basa no en acciones, sino en rostros?
To read the article in English, click HERE.
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network. Balta is the only person to serve twice as president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ).
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.