ICE ordered to stop knock-and-talk tactic for immigration arrests in LA

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A federal judge this week ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop using so-called knock-and-talk tactics, a method for immigration arrests in which field officers enter a property without a judicial warrant or consent, then arrest undocumented immigrants when they come to the door.

In a decision on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II, a George W. Bush appointee, said the practice amounts to "knock-and-arrest" and violates Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. These protections, he noted, include the curtilage around one's home, such as yards and porches that are part of the property.

By entering this curtilage armed with only an administrative arrest warrant — not a judicial one — immigration officers were violating these protections, Wright said. He noted that while officers pretended they only wanted to talk when they knocked, the real purpose was making immigration arrests.

Plaintiffs, including migrants themselves, hoped for a full injunction blocking the practice. Wright did not go that far, instead vacating knock-and-talk policies and practices used by ICE's Los Angeles field office for civil immigration arrests.

"Here, either vacatur or an injunction would suffice to strike down ICE’s 'knock and talk' policy," Wright reasoned in his decision. But unlike a vacatur, "an injunction would restrain defendants from, in the future, attempting to institute a modified or amended version of the 'knock and talk' policy that complies with constitutional limitations."

Representatives of ICE didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

Backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the UC Irvine School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic and lawyers from Los-Angeles based Munger, Tolles & Olson, a group of migrants in 2020 filed a class action over these methods. In addition to challenging knock-and-talk tactics, the migrants in their suit also called out ICE field officers for pretending to be police or probation officers for the purpose of making arrests.

The plaintiffs and ICE last year agreed to settle the latter so-called ruse claims — leaving only the knock-and-talk claims to proceed to summary judgment. According to a plaintiff expert witness cited in Wright's ruling, knock-and-talks accounted for at least 27% of residential arrests for the period during which data was available, including at least 8% of all arrests in 2022.

Under knock-and-talk, ICE officers typically show up at migrants' homes in the early morning hours. Agents knock on the door and ask to speak with the undocumented immigrant they seek to arrest.

Among the examples cited by Wright was the arrest of Diana Rodriguez in Anaheim on Feb. 17, 2017. At around 8:30 am that day, ICE officers approached the back entrance of her home, which was only accessible through the backyard.

After Rodriguez’s girlfriend answered the door, an officer asked Rodriguez to step outside, answer some questions and provide the officers with identification. When Rodriguez did so, they took her into custody.

In another case from 2017, ICE officers approached the residence of Linda Urbano Vasquez in Pomona at about 7:30 am, entering through a fence surrounding her property.

They then entered onto a covered porch to reach the front door. When Urbano Vasquez answered the door, the officers indicated that they were probation officers looking for her brother, Jose. That was not true — and when Jose approached the front door, he was taken into custody.

Stephanie Padilla, a staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said Wright's order "should significantly curtail ICE’s unconstitutional home arrest practices.”

 “Everyone should feel safe in their own home, regardless of immigration status," she said. "Because ICE never has judicial warrants, they primarily rely on ‘knock and talks’ to conduct home arrests."

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