What rights do people have when approached by ICE?
Federal law gives immigration agents the authority to arrest and detain people believed to have violated immigration law. But everyone — including immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally — is protected against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Constitution's Fourth Amendment.
"All law enforcement officers, including ICE, are bound by the Constitution," said Alexandra Lopez, managing partner of a Chicago-based law firm specializing in immigration cases.
The Fourth Amendment doesn’t stop ICE from trying to deport people who have broken immigration law, but it has traditionally constrained the agency. The more extensive an enforcement action is, the higher the bar for immigration officers to justify their actions.
For example, officers can question someone in a public place, but more extensive interactions — such as a brief detention that’s not a formal arrest — require a "reasonable suspicion" that someone has committed a crime or is in the U.S. illegally, the Supreme Court has ruled.
Reasonable suspicion "has to be more than a guess or a presumption," said Michele Goodwin, a Georgetown University law professor. To meet this standard, a reasonable person would need to suspect that a crime was being committed, had been committed or would be committed.
Agents must meet an even higher bar to arrest someone. They need "probable cause," which generally requires enough evidence or information to suggest a person has committed a crime.