The Supreme Court last week allowed federal agents to stop and question people based solely on factors like their race, dramatically weakening protections against illegal racial profiling.

In a 6-3 order with no reasoning or explanation, the Court granted the federal government’s request that it stay a lower court’s order barring federal agents from engaging in illegal racial profiling.

“When ICE grabbed me, they never showed a warrant or explained why. I was treated like I didn’t matter–locked up, cold, hungry, and without a lawyer,” Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, a named plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “Now, the Supreme Court says that’s okay? That’s not justice. That’s racism with a badge.”

In early June, the federal government deployed “roving patrols of armed and masked immigration agents to local car washes, Home Depots, tow yards, bus stops, farms, recycling centers, churches, and parks” in Los Angeles, where they arrested nearly 2,800 people and detained many more over the next month, Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor,” the dissent observed. U.S. citizens are among those “being seized, taken from their jobs, and prevented from working to support themselves and their families.”

Jason Gavidia, a Latino U.S. citizen, was working on his car in a tow yard in Montebello when armed and masked immigration agents stopped and questioned him. He repeatedly told them he is a citizen, but they racked a rifle, took his phone, pushed him up against a metal fence, put his hands behind his back, and twisted his arm when he could not name the hospital where he was born. They released him only after taking his REAL ID.

Read the full article about the Supreme Court's ruling on racial profiling at Equal Justice Initiative.