Trump's Immigration Crackdown Imperils the Fourth Amendment Rights of U.S. Citizens

A federal court says U.S. citizens “are likely to succeed in showing” that immigration agents violated their rights.

The Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures has been regrettably whittled down over the years by the federal courts. Still, some meaningful protections contained in the amendment have managed to persist in U.S. law. As an example, consider a recent federal appellate court decision arising from the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in Los Angeles.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit largely affirmed a lower court ruling that found that the Trump administration was likely guilty of conducting illegal immigration raids in the greater Los Angeles area that violated the Fourth Amendment rights of multiple U.S. citizens.

Generally speaking, Fourth Amendment caselaw requires that an officer must have reasonable suspicion of criminal activity in order to stop someone. In the immigration context, a federal officer must have reasonable suspicion that a person is in violation of immigration law in order to detain them.

In this case, Perdomo v. Noem, the lower court held, and the appellate court agreed, that the Trump administration was apparently carrying out immigration raids and arrests without any semblance of reasonable suspicion, which invariably meant that U.S. citizens were also getting caught up in the federal dragnet.

Indeed, according to the 9th Circuit, multiple U.S. citizens "are likely to succeed in showing" that they were unlawfully seized by federal immigration officials who targeted them exclusively because of their race, language, appearance, or location. Anyone "who appears Hispanic, speaks Spanish or English with an accent, wears work clothes, and stands near a carwash, in front of a Home Depot, or at a bus stop," the 9th Circuit observed, was at risk of being ensnared in what Trump officials dubbed "Operation at Large."

Among those who actually were ensnared in that particular federal operation was a U.S. citizen named Jason Brian Gavidia. Here is how the 9th Circuit described his likely illegal treatment at the hands of federal officers:

One agent ordered him to "Stop right there" while another "ran towards [him]." The agents repeatedly asked Gavidia whether he is American—and they repeatedly ignored his answer: "I am an American." The agents asked Gavidia what hospital he was born in—and he explained that he did not know which hospital. "The agents forcefully pushed [Gavidia] up against the metal gated fence, put [his] hands behind [his] back, and twisted [his] arm." An agent asked again, "What hospital were you born in?" Gavidia again explained that he did not know which hospital and said "East L.A." He then told the agents he could show them his Real ID. The agents took Gavidia's ID and his phone and kept his phone for 20 minutes. They never returned his ID.

In response to the 9th Circuit's decision, which kept in place a temporary restraining order imposed against the federal government's L.A. immigration operation, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin complained that "unelected judges are undermining the will of the American people."

But McLaughlin is mistaken about the proper role of the courts. The whole point of the Fourth Amendment is to outlaw the kind of abusive government behavior at issue in a case like this one. The American people should be heartened by the thought of federal judges actually putting the Fourth Amendment to its intended use.