One of President Donald Trump’s campaign promises was to reshape immigration policy, which he aimed to accomplish through mass deportations and tightened border security. Just one year into his presidency, he mobilized Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in ways that directly undermined and violated constitutional principles.
The Constitution has 27 amendments that grant freedoms to United States citizens. There are also amendments that extend protections to non-citizens. Of those, ICE has breached promises reflected in at least one: the Fourth.
Under the Fourth Amendment, U.S. residents are guarded from unreasonable searches and seizures. This amendment states that government officials need probable cause, often backed by a warrant, before searching and confiscating one’s person or property.
Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1357 grants law enforcement the “broad authority” to interrogate, search and seize individuals believed to be illegal immigrants. In other words, officers do not need a warrant to conduct these procedures as long as they have a justifiable reason to suspect someone is in the country illegally.
The federal law itself is technically not unconstitutional, since the Fourth Amendment permits unwarranted searches when there is probable cause. But the issue lies in what the federal government considers a probable cause: someone’s ethnicity.
The Task Force Model (TFM) enables state and local officers to identify and arrest potential non-citizens during routine police procedures. The TFM was discontinued in 2012 after a Department of Justice investigation unveiled systematic civil rights violations and repeated racial profiling concerns. Immediately after taking office last January, Trump signed “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” or Executive Order 14159. The order called for the expansion of Section 287(g) agreements—partnerships between ICE and state and local law enforcement agencies—and the reintroduction of TFM.
According to ICE’s 2013 fiscal year records, 82% of all interior removals had been convicted of a crime. In 2012, before TFM was discontinued, only around 55% of removals had previously committed a felony or misdemeanor. Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reports from November 2025 show that 73.6% of current detainees hold no criminal record. Only 5% of those in ICE detention are considered violent criminals, and nine in ten arrests are of Latino descent.
Recent records in consideration, the majority of immigrants in ICE detention most likely overstayed their visas or reside in the country unlawfully. These are civil infractions. Immigration enforcement officers—now including deputized police officers—are permitted to arrest individuals who commit civil infractions in public spaces without administrative or judicial warrants.
However, ICE agents are required to have a judicial warrant signed by a judge before entering a home, even if they are arresting an immigrant for a civil infraction. An administrative warrant signed by an ICE officer permits another agent to approach private property, but they can be refused entry.
There have been several instances in 2025 where ICE agents have forcefully entered homes without warrants.
According to the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), ICE officers raided a home in Portland, Oregon, in October. Gloria Magaña, the homeowner, told CBS her son called to inform her that the officers were outside their house yelling for a man named Israel. No one in the residence went by that name. Nevertheless, the agents broke into the property and arrested Magaña’s husband and their son.
Just over a month later, on Nov. 25, a 26-year-old house painter, Jeffrey Suazo, was pursued by ICE agents looking for Victor Rodriguez, a Honduran immigrant. When Suazo fled to his home in Saint Paul, Minnesota, he locked all the doors but one in the first-floor residence, where Rodriguez lived. According to the Sahan Journal, ICE agents entered through the unlocked door and proceeded to taunt the Suazo family. They allegedly called out “señora, señora” to locate any women in the estate, then referred to Suazo as “poco hombre.” After nearly five hours, Suazo decided to comply with the officers.
Warrantless arrests on private property have also occurred in populous cities, including Chicago, Illinois.
In March 2025, Trump formally invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—a law in the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts—to allow the expeditious detention and removal of undocumented immigrants. The Alien Enemies Act grants wartime authority to remove immigrants or nationals of an enemy territory without due process or warrants. PBS reported that the President used this 236-year-old law to validate the rapid deportations of 250 Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador, claiming that they were members of Tren de Aragua, an organized crime syndicate.
The Trump administration declared that the use of this authority was justified because the alleged influx of foreign drug dealers and gang members constitutes a time of war. By legal definition, though, a “time of war” is a period in which there is armed conflict. Even if there was an influx of hostile foreign criminals in the country, there are statistically fewer of them than hostile native-born criminals, as per an American Immigration Council fact sheet. Logically, then, Trump’s wartime assertion is driven by native-born citizens, not undocumented immigrants.
The federal government has converted a homeland security agency into an ethnic cleansing organization. Statistics do not lie—most immigrants in custody are not dangerous criminals, and they are less likely to be criminals than native citizens. Federal authority is being deliberately abused to unjustly strip residents of their Fourth Amendment rights. In the process, they are spreading a harmful, intolerant narrative surrounding immigrants.