It's taken nearly three years, but the MSM are finally paying attention to ICE's pattern and practice of unconstitutional home invasions. Thanks to a groundbreaking report by the Cardozo Law School Immigration Justice Clinic, media outlets including the Washington Post, CBS News, the New York Times, and even Xinua (!) News from China, are now shining a light on these shocking abuses of power. From the Cardozo Report's Executive Summary:
During the last two years of the Bush Administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) vastly expanded its use of home raid operations as a method to locate and apprehend individuals suspected of civil immigration law violations. These home raids generally involve teams of heavily armed ICE agents making predawn tactical entries into homes, purportedly to apprehend some high priority target believed to be residing therein. ICE has admitted that these are warrantless raids and, therefore, that any entries into homes require the informed consent of residents. However, frequent accounts in the media and in legal filings have told a similar story of constitutional violations occurring during ICE home raids — a story that includes ICE agents breaking into homes and seizing all occupants without legal basis . . .
Analysis of [ICE] records, together with other publicly available documents, reveals an established pattern of misconduct by ICE agents in the New York and New Jersey Field Offices. Further, the evidence suggests that such pattern may be a widespread national phenomenon reaching beyond these local offices. The pattern of misconduct involves:
• ICE agents illegally entering homes without legal authority – for example, physically pushing or breaking their way into private residences.
• ICE agents illegally seizing non-target individuals during home raid operations – for example, seizing innocent people in their bedrooms without any basis.
• ICE agents illegally searching homes without legal authority – for example, breaking down locked doors inside homes.
• ICE agents illegally seizing individuals based solely on racial or ethnic
appearance or on limited English proficiency.
These findings come as no surprise to our law firm. Regarding the many home invasion victims we've consulted with, these raids as a rule were conducted at dawn by armed agents, with no consent to enter, with home residents pulled out of bed or the shower, with no opportunity by home residents to end the encounter, and with no advisal of rights, as required by law and ICE's own regulations at 8 CFR Section 287.8(b), (c).
As bluntly put by essayist Edward Schumacher-Matos,
Proponents of harsh immigration enforcement often forget that it is the Fourth Amendment, and not some liberal court, that specifically prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures" and demands that police get warrants based upon "probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Courts have ruled that the amendment applies to illegal immigrants,
too, and for more reasons than fairness. How can you tell by looking if
someone is undocumented?
In our clients' experience, ICE agents are using non-judicial, administrative arrest warrants -- warrants that only allow agents to arrest a specifically named individual who is already under a deportation order. These ICE warrants provide no 4th Amendment authority to agents to enter or search a home. However, ICE agents appear to be using these administrative warrants as a pretext to forcibly enter private residences and once inside, intimidate, interrogate, and arrest any undocumented person they might find in the home. The great proportion of these "collateral" arrests, according to the Cardozo Report, are not criminals, but rather people who are liable at most for irregular entry or overstaying their visas.
These violently invasive ICE operations beg the question about the type of country we want to be, and whether Americans are willing to shred the 4th Amendment to clear this country of any and all undocumented immigrants. Daniel Shanfield, Esq. Immigration Defense will continue to follow this issue and provide updates through our blog.
