ICE Accused Of Illegal Workplace Searches During Raids

As reported in a February 26, 2008 article by N.C. Aizenman in the Washington Post titled "Immigration Agency Accused of Illegal Searches" on page A04, a private commission of labor and immigrant advocates held a hearing to publicize allegations that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) routinely violates workers' constitutional rights during workplace raids.

Participants in the hearing accused ICE of using arrest warrants for a small number of workers as a pretext to conduct illegal searches and detentions of everyone at the workplace while ICE tries to search through illegal means for other undocumented people in the same workplace.

These are just the latest accusations of widespread Fourth Amendment violations by ICE. The growing chorus of accusations and evidence of widespread Fourth Amendment violations is significant because the United States Supreme Court announced in a case called Lopez-Mendoza v. INS in 1984 that it would consider imposing the exclusionary rule to exclude all illegally obtained evidence in immigration court if there one day was proof of widespread illegal searches by the immigration authorities. There are several cases raising this issue, including an appeal that is pending with the Third Circuit.