Constitutional Concerns Surrounding Recent ICE Raids in the United States
- Eda Deniz Koselleck
- 2 dic 2025
- 4 Min. de lectura
This article aims to cover the reasons behind expanding number of raids under President Donald Trump's second administration against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from a legal perspective of constitutional preservations, arguing that fundamental civil rights and liberties guaranteed under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments – especially regarding due process, equal protection and measures against unreasonable searches and seizure - are at stake.
As shall be argued, the main reason appears as ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Division’s acting on its own accord, or in other words in line with Trump Administration’s ambition to carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history” - as formulated by Trump himself during his election campaign. The division, which is pro forma responsible for upholding US immigration law at, within and beyond the American borders against those who present a danger to American national security, who pose threats to public safety or who have violated immigration law, have lately targeted long-standing residents, asylum seekers and individuals without criminal records increasingly based on racial or ethnic profiling. Within the light of the stated arguments, the given article examines structural loopholes and constitutional concerns surrounding ICE, particularly the raids and the abolishment demand.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003, as part of the newly formed US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). ICE is the result of a merger of the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the former US Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The agency is grouped into three operational directorates, namely Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA). Since the day of its establishment this young agency, ICE has been the target of constitutional, political and humanitarian arguments with its highly controversial actions, which eventually led to “Abolish ICE” movements. A significant component of the increased critics has been ERO, which manages all aspects of the immigration enforcement process, including identification and arrest, domestic transportation, detention, bond management, and supervised release, including alternatives to detention. However, the Agency’s discretion and reluctant detention policies based on ungrounded and voluntary profiling methods and not providing official documentation seriously violates not only the constitutional rights guaranteed to protect the fundamental civil rights but also leads to other challenges, which we shall shortly cover.
With regards to Constitutional challenges, as stated in the Abstract, the fundamental civil rights and liberties guaranteed under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments are at stake. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right of everyone in the US against unreasonable searches and seizures, including arrests and detentions without individualized suspicion, by the government. This means that the government cannot enter homes or search belongings without a warrant or probable cause. This right was later also extended to undocumented immigrants by the Supreme Court, remaining the only exception, - the "border search exception", which allows the government to conduct warrantless searches within a 100-mile of any US border. Another important right granted also to the undocumented immigrants in the US, is the right to due process. This legal principle ensures that everyone is given a fair and impartial hearing before the government takes away their life, liberty or property. This right, as stated above, is guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. Also, the Sixth Amendment constitutes the right to legal counsel in all criminal proceedings. Moreover, both citizens and non-citizens in the US have constitutional protections.
The Constitution protects all people living in the United States, regardless of their respective immigration status. These constitutional rights guarantee, amongst other things, due process of law and the Constitution's Suspension Clause to safeguard the ‘writ of habeas corpus’, which is a key protection against unlawful government actions, to challenge the legality of a person’s confinement. Last but not least, the Fourteenth Amendment uses the due process clause that describes the legal obligation of all state governments to provide equal protection of the laws to all persons, regardless of immigration status. However, the “zero tolerance policy” of Trump combined with heightened and aggressive measures taken by ICE employees and these being forged by criminals threaten all the fundamental rights. Supreme Court’s recent decision in September, in the case of Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, permitting ICE agents to “briefly” detain someone has paved one of the main stones of this loophole, which even led the FBI to issue an internal memo warning against the criminals impersonating ICE agents (who wear masks, show no identification and stop people reluctantly on the streets) who were abducting women on the streets, grabbing them up and putting them into SUVs.
Noah Feldman, Harvard Constitutional Law Professor has been publicly criticising ICE’s “trampling on American rights extensively” and questioning why no one was doing anything. The loopholes backing the Supreme Court’s arguments of “briefly”, “reasonable suspicion” and finally the “lack of warrants” - when there is a reason to believe that the suspect might flee, all surrounds and condemn the actions of ICE and give rise to raids and “Abolish ICE” campaigns led by left-wing supporters. As agreed by the majority of the Constitutional Law Professors, the misconducts of ICE can easily be stopped by the US Congress’s passing a law prohibiting the voluntary actions and practices of ICE. If the public awareness is not drawn more to this issue to make the necessary pressure during the 2026/28 elections and on the elected officials of the Congress to guarantee the fundamental rights set in US Constitution, “nothing is going to change” to quote N. Feldman.
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