ICE Immigration Raids Are Reckless and Unconstitutional

Since late 2006 the Department of Homeland Security Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) section has undertaken an unprecedented campaign of immigration raids in homes, and worksites. The ACLU has challenged the legality and constitutionality of many of these raids including worksite raids conducted in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Van Nuys, California.

“ICE's immigration raids have been so sweeping that they have ensnared U.S. citizens, including innocent children, in their dragnet,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “There are no regulations controlling ICE's reckless raids, and ICE routinely violates due process while conducting raids.”

During a raid last year in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kebin Reyes, a then 6-year-old U.S. citizen, was detained for 10 hours in an ICE field office after his home was raided by ICE. The ACLU, with the San Francisco Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, sued ICE on behalf of Reyes, arguing that his detention violated his constitutionally protected civil rights. Katherine Gibney, the principal of Reyes’s school, is scheduled to testify in today’s subcommittee hearing.

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