Immigration and Customs Enforcement suffered a legal blow recently after a federal judge ruled that the agency's so-called “call and talk” tactics, which involve engaging with illegal immigrants and other immigrants subject to arrest, are unconstitutional.
California U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a motion for summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs last week in a class-action lawsuit filed against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in his official capacity.
The case, Kidd v. Mayorkas, arose from a 2018 confrontation between an immigration agent and an immigrant in the U.S. with temporary protected status named Osny Sorto-Vásquez Kidd. The agent reportedly approached Kidd's Los Angeles-area home with a photograph that was supposedly of a “dangerous man who was chasing them,” Kidd said at the time, according to the Orange County Register.
But at the end of the encounter, Kidd was arrested and sent to a detention center in San Bernardino, California.
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The class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of Kidd, the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, according to Lexis Nexis.
Wright ruled that ICE agents were violating the Fourth Amendment by using door knocking as a means to lure people they were trying to arrest away from their homes. He said the tactic remains legal in situations involving criminal warrants.
Because removal warrants fall under civil jurisdiction, officers executing them do not have the same authority to enter a suspect's property as officers executing a criminal arrest warrant, the judge concluded.
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“Given the policies and practices that govern how ICE conducts its 'calls and conversations,' the more accurate title for certain law enforcement operations would be 'calls and arrests,'” Wright wrote. “This order serves to nullify those illegal policies and practices.”
Wright's ruling cited an ICE manual stating that a “warrant for the arrest of [an] alien nor a removal order authorizes officers to enter the target's residence or any other location where the target has a reasonable expectation of privacy. “A government intrusion into an area where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy for the purpose of collecting information will trigger Fourth Amendment protections, including a physical intrusion into a constitutionally protected area.”
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A special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seen in Ohio, June 19, 2018. (ICE/US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
He said officers must clearly obtain voluntary consent to enter properties where reasonable privacy is expected.
However, a prominent critic, former immigration judge Matthew O'Brien, told the Washington Times on Wednesday that Wright got the law wrong.
“It is absurd to say that ICE cannot participate in investigative procedures,” O'Brien told the outlet.
Fox News Digital has reached out to ICE and DHS for comment.
