N.Y. Times Quotes Professor Johnson on Evidence of Racial Profiling in Immigration Sweeps

Professor Emeritus Kevin R. Johnson spoke to the New York Times for an Aug. 11 report on how body-camera footage, text messages and other evidence from lawsuits indicate racial profiling within the mass deportation campaign by President Donald Trump’s administration.

The story weighs such evidence against what the Times called Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s “provisional blessing to such racial profiling” last year, when the high court overturned a federal judge’s order prohibiting federal agents in Los Angeles from questioning people about immigration status based solely on factors like ethnicity.

The Supreme Court order and Kavanagh’s accompanying opinion are not the final word, Johnson told the Times. The most recent footage — taken from inside patrol vehicles in Chicago and Los Angeles — could raise fresh concerns for the justices upon the underlying lawsuit's likely return to the Supreme Court for full consideration, he said.

“The racial slurs are troubling and coupled with the recent string of Latinos killed in car stops and detention centers, they are likely to get the justices thinking about what is going on here in ways that they haven’t.”

Kevin R. Johnson is a distinguished professor of law and Chicanx Studies emeritus and director of the Aoki Center. He is the former Mabie/Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and he served as dean of UC Davis Law from 2008 to 2024. Johnson is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of immigration law and policy, refugee law and civil rights.