ICE Raids Cause Chilling Effect On Residents

In the San Francisco Bay area, raids by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) have caused a chilling effect on residents, and probably have triggered a decrease in the number of phone calls that people are making to the police, for fear that the local police are cooperating with immigration enforcement. In an article by Jesse McKinley titled "San Francisco Bay Area Reacts Angrily to Series of Immigration Raids" in the New York Times on April 28, 2007, Mayor Al Boro of San Rafael, California, said:
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"Waking people up in the dark of night, at 5 a.m., in their homes seems more like a scare tactic than a law enforcement necessity,” Mr. Boro wrote. Calls to the local police have decreased in recent weeks, Mr. Boro said, and he attributed the dropoff to the immigration raids’ “chilling effect because people think our police were involved.”

This is the same area where the ACLU and others filed a lawsuit for Kebin Reyes, a 7-year old United States citizen who was illegally arrested by ICE and held all day, traumatizing the child. This is even more reason from a public policy standpoint why courts should respond to the crisis and ICE's widespread illegal searches and seizures by imposing the exclusionary rule to suppress all illegally obtained evidence in immigration court.