New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez today denounced the U.S. Supreme Court’s administrative stay of a lower court decision that effectively allows federal agents to continue to stop and detain people based on their perceived race or ethnicity, their language or accent, and the type of work they do.

“This decision, which effectively allows federal agents to continue to stop and detain people because of their skin color, the language they speak, and the work that they do, is a grave insult to the people of New Mexico. Our state has the highest proportion of Latinos in the nation — many of them, like me, American citizens whose families have lived in New Mexico for generations. This unconscionable decision, which ignores our Constitutional rights, make us second-class citizens in our own country."