ICE Agents Used Racial Profiling And Lied In Baltimore

A series of news articles in the past few months have detailed accusations that ICE agents in Baltimore used racial profiling and then lied about what they had done.

In late January 2009, CASA de Maryland, an immigrant advocacy group based in Silver Spring and with a Baltimore office, release striking footage in which ICE agents targeted people in January 2007 outside a Seven-Eleven store in Baltimore. At first glance, the video shows ICE agents holding a number of Latino men around the store but not questioning or stopping any African-Americans who at the same time went to visit the same store. Advocates explained that ICE agents let African-Americans in the area pass through without any questions and also let a white man who had hired three Latinos for day labor to drive his pickup away without being questioned.

In February 2009, CASA de Maryland released a report from an internal investigation in which ICE agents acknowledged that raids in busy city centers were done to meet quotas. According to CASA de Maryland, the report also shows contradictory information from the sworn declarations of ICE agents involved in the 2007 raid. In addition, the information that ICE gave right after the raid to Senator Ben Cardin was false.

The use of quotas, racial profiling, and lying to Senators if proven would all put together an ugly picture of widespread illegal ICE raids, illegal ICE arrests, and illegal ICE searches. The widespread nature of illegal ICE conduct supports imposing the exclusionary rule to suppress evidence in immigration court for all Fourth Amendment violations.