Federal immigration agents conducting home raids have committed numerous constitutional violations, according a report released Wednesday by the Immigration Justice Clinic [academic website] at the Cardozo School of Law. The report found that, since 2006, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] agents routinely entered private homes in the middle of the night without warrants and seized residents without a legal basis in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The report also found that Latinos were disproportionately likely to be arrested during home raids, suggesting a pattern of racial profiling. Clinic director and co-author of the report Peter Markowitz said:

This report reveals an alarming pattern of federal immigration officials breaking into people's homes and bedrooms in the pre-dawn hours in flagrant violation of the Constitution. The government's heavy handed tactics are a monumental waste of public resources resulting primarily in the arrest of hard working immigrants who pose no danger at all to society.

The report concludes with several policy recommendations, including limiting home raid operations, obtaining warrants before conducting home raids, and improving training and supervision of home raid teams. [MORE]