Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Cardozo Law Releasing Report on Widespread Illegal ICE Raids

On July 21, 2009, Nina Bernstein of the New York Times wrote about "Report Finds Immigration Agents Broke Laws and Agency Rules in Home Raids."

She focused on a study scheduled for release on July 22, 2009 by the Immigration Justice Law Clinic at Cardozo Law School. The clinic is led by Peter Markowitz, who is also one of the report's co-authors.

Key findings include that despite requiring consent before entering a home without a judicial warrant, 86% of ICE arrest reports in Nassau County and Suffolk County did not give any indication that ICE obtained the required consent. Likewise, in 25% of New Jersey cases, ICE did not list obtaining the necessary consent.

What is not the focus of the report is how many immigration lawyers dispute whether ICE obtained consent in the home raids where they write down that they purportedly obtained consent. There are several suppression motions in immigration court with compelling evidence that ICE never obtained consent despite writing down that they supposedly obtained it.

The report also saw suggestions of racial profiling because of the very high percentage of Latino arrests of those who were not targets of the raids compared with a much lower percentage of Latino targets of the raids.

There is now even more evidence of widespread Fourth Amendment violations in illegal raids by ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Under the formula set up by the United States Supreme Court, there is good reason to argue that the exclusionary rule must be applied in immigration court to suppress evidence that arises from illegal ICE raids.

Lawyers around the country including in New Jersey, Minnesota, Connecticut, and California are pursuing these arguments in court.

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