Share and Follow
The office of Squad member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., hosted a live webinar on Wednesday advising migrants in her district about their rights if they come face to face with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents looking to deport them.
The “Know Your Rights With ICE” virtual event was broadcast live on Ocasio-Cortez’s Facebook page, where migrant viewers were informed of how to deal with ICE search requests if officers come calling to their homes or place of work.
Migrants were also warned of “ruses” they allege ICE agents employ to get people to comply with searches, while the hosts also touted “trends” in how ICE conducts its searches, which have ramped up in recent weeks under the Trump administration.
The office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., hosted a live webinar advising migrants in her district about their rights if they come face to face with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents looking to deport them. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images, left, and Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images.)
President Donald Trump and deported migrants in Colombia. Deportations have ramped up under his presidency. (Jim WATSON / AFP, left, and Colombian government.)
During the webinar, the hosts told viewers that the Fourth Amendment – which provides protection from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government — applies to everyone, including migrants.
“So there’s a general rule here, which is in private spaces, Ice is going to need a warrant signed by a judge or your consent to enter that space or to do a search. When we’re talking about public spaces. ICE will need reasonable suspicion in order to make an arrest,” said another speaker, who identified herself as Laura.
She explained the difference between a judicial warrant and an administrative warrant, saying that only a judicial warrant gives ICE authority to initiate a search.
However, she said ICE rarely carries a judicial warrant, which means ICE agents need consent to enter a home.
“But they often use ruses or intimidation to try to trick people into doing or saying things that they can interpret as consent to enter,” she said.
“And so that’s really the purpose of ruses. Since they don’t have a warrant, they need to get your consent in order to enter they either want to deceive you into thinking that they’re not ICE or they lie so that you’ve come to believe that they do have a right to enter or they want to intimidate or scare you so that you don’t want to assert your rights.”
The hosts also recommend that people document interactions with ICE by video recording or taking notes, saying that this information could be useful to local immigrants’ rights groups as well as friends or family members.
They also shared their own trends about how ICE has been carrying out searches in recent weeks.
ICE carrying out an arrest recently. (ICE)
“In particular in recent weeks, ICE agents will go to homes early in the morning to make arrests,” Blaser said. “They’ll stop people on the street or in public places, which could include a public area of a workplace. So that could be the front of a restaurant or somewhere anyone from the public can walk in.”
She also said that unmarked ICE vehicles also stop cars as people are driving to work or home, while people who may be under an order of supervision have been taken into custody while checking in with ICE.
“It could be anywhere from two or three agents to a group of eight agents,” Blaser said. “They’re often very aggressive and the encounters can happen really quickly.”
Fox News Digital reached out to ICE for comment but did not immediately receive a response.