Federal immigration agents raided a Cayuga County nutrition bar factory in September. The agents — heavily armed, some wearing masks — rounded up all kinds of people using a warrant that did not name or describe any individual person to be searched or authorized to be seized. The warrant they used was one that typically gives the government power to search business records and computers, not people. Our Constitution’s Fourth Amendment requires probable cause for a warrant and is supposed to protect residents of this country, citizens and noncitizens alike, from unreasonable search and seizure.
And yet agents rounded up 100 workers, separated them by race and seized nearly 60 of them that they divined — on the spot — were in the country illegally. It was just one of many violations of the workers’ constitutional rights that occurred that day.
This is not a paperwork problem. The federal government’s apparent abuse of an administrative warrant to deprive people of their liberty strikes at the heart of constitutional protections we all rely upon to freely conduct our lives. The American people have not given the immigration industrial complex the power to be judge, jury and executioner.
The editorial board supports the American Civil Liberties Union’s motion calling on federal Magistrate Judge Therese Wiley-Dancks to unseal the warrant and supporting documents.
The public has a right to see what facts and arguments the government presented to obtain the warrant, and whether the federal agents executing it obeyed any conditions under which it was issued.
The courts historically give great deference to prosecutors investigating crimes, and there may be circumstances behind the Cato raid that we don’t know about. A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it was part of an “ongoing criminal investigation.” So far, the only people accused of a crime are five workers who face felony immigration charges.
However, the public and the courts have ample reason to doubt what the Trump administration says in support of its crackdown on immigration and crime in major U.S. cities.
They lie.
They continue to lie about going after only the “worst of the worst” immigrant offenders. They lied about disorder on the streets of Portland, Oregon. They lied about rebellion in Chicago. They lied about sending detainees to a notorious prison in El Salvador — while the plane was in the air. As of Thursday, a running tally by the nonpartisan law journal Just Security counted 26 cases in which the Trump administration failed to comply with judicial orders and 60 times the courts expressed distrust of the government’s facts and representations.
So, it matters what DHS told Judge Wiley-Dancks in order to get her to sign the administrative warrant to search the Cato factory. It matters especially in light of how the raid went down.
More than 70 agents, many wearing tactical gear and carrying guns, forcibly entered the building, some using crowbars to break into locked doors. In one humiliating episode, caught on a body camera, an agent broke down the door of the ladies’ room and ordered the woman sitting on the toilet to come out.
Agents separated workers based on their race. The white workers were let go. Hispanic workers were herded into a break room and questioned about their immigration status and work papers — even though agents didn’t have the right kind of warrant to do so.
Nearly 70 immigrant workers, some with legal permission to work, were taken into custody — even though the warrant didn’t name any of them, as the Fourth Amendment prescribes. At least 21 people were separated from children, including three under the age of 2.
The detainees were not given due process of law to challenge their detention — even though the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says they have that right. Some were immediately shipped to ICE detention centers in Texas and Louisiana; others to border patrol stations. It was days before they were given access to phones to call lawyers or family members.
If federal agents can stop people based on their appearance, question them under duress, detain them without a warrant, deny them legal representation and jail them without charge, they could do the same to you or to us.
We implore New York federal and state judges to demand DHS respect the Constitution and adhere to the highest scrutiny in awarding future warrants that devastate human lives and almost certainly destroy businesses. The courts must defend the rule of law against an executive branch that lies unrepentantly, bulldozes legal norms and tramples upon individuals’ constitutional rights in pursuit of its unpopular and immoral mass deportation agenda. Judges should help the public discern whether the government’s ends justify the drastic means it is using to achieve them.
Unseal the warrant and supporting documents so we can see for ourselves.
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