72 Am. U. L. Rev. F. 59 (2022).

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Abstract

For the past several years, there have been reports of non-citizens lied to and coerced into allowing ICE agents to enter their homes based on false pretenses. ICE agents, equipped with weak administrative warrants, know that without a judicial warrant they must seek consent to enter a home. As a result, ICE conducts ruses to obtain consent to enter a non-citizen’s home and subsequently, conduct an arrest. This tactic is an egregious violation of Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure and undermines notions of anticommandeering under the Tenth Amendment.

This Comment outlines the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit’s Jurisprudence on the Consent Doctrine to describe the fine line of permissible and impermissible acts. This Comment goes on to classify ICE ruses as impermissible misrepresentations that, in addition to violating the Fourth Amendment, undermine trust in local and state police in violation of Tenth Amendment principles. Finally, this Comment provides the steps that ICE and the various Courts must take to protect non-citizen’s Fourth Amendment rights and balance federal and state powers.

* Senior Staff Member, American University Law Review, Volume 72; J.D. Candidate, May 2023, American University Washington College of Law, B.A. Political Science and Spanish, 2019, Berry College. The publication of this Comment was made possible thanks to the efforts of Vol. 71 and Vol. 72 AULR staff. Thank you to Professor Amanda Frost, my faculty advisor, for your invaluable guidance over the past 1.5 years working on this Comment and in all endeavors immigration law related. To my friends and family: your constant words of encouragement have meant the world to me. Esta publicación está dedicada a mi mamá quien, como parte de la comunidad inmigrante, me inspira cada día a ser una persona perseverante.