Just a few days after President Donald Trump took office in January, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out a workplace raid in Newark, New Jersey, that alarmed local officials and immigrant advocates.
ICE agents detained "undocumented residents as well as citizens, without producing a warrant," said Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka in a January 23 statement. "This egregious act is in plain violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees 'the right of the people [to] be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.'"
The Trump administration could be gearing up for broader warrantless immigration enforcement. Lawyers for the administration "have determined that an 18th-century wartime law the president has invoked to deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang allows federal agents to enter homes without a warrant," The New York Times reported on Thursday, which would effectively set "aside a key provision of the Fourth Amendment that requires a court order to search someone's home."
