The Associated Press is reporting that immigration agents raiding homes for suspected illegal immigrants violated the US Constitution by entering without proper consent and may have used racial profiling, a report analyzing arrest records found.
In the report, released Wednesday by the Immigration Justice Clinic at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, said that since ICE agents use administrative warrants - instead of judicial warrants, which give law enforcement unfettered access - they must have a resident's consent to enter a home or else violate the constitutional right to protection against unreasonable searches.
On Long Island, 86 percent of arrest records from 100 raids between January 2006 and April 2008 showed no record of consent being given,the report found. In northern and central New Jersey, no record of consent being given was found for 24 percent of about 600 arrests in 2006 and 2007, it found.
In a statement, ICE said its agents uphold the country's laws. "We do so professionally, humanely and with an acute awareness regarding the impact enforcement has on the individuals we encounter," it said.