"Masked, plain-clothed agents are grabbing people they believe are undocumented immigrants off the streets, pulling them into unmarked vehicles and swiftly detaining them. In other cases, masked agents are running checkpoints in the middle of Washington, D.C., and in L.A., and questioning people in their cars. And in some situations, agents are smashing the windows of those cars in order to pull a person out."
"Immigration agents are often given wide latitude in their work. That means a lot of what the public has been witnessing since President Trump took office and may be shocked by is likely legal. But what is allowable is becoming more unclear as these tactics test the limits of the law. "In that sense it is a very confusing time for lawyers and the public alike,""
"Congress gave the burgeoning agency wide power to question, search and arrest immigrants, or those believed to be immigrants, without a warrant. In the past, that has looked like investigative police work and arresting specific targets in specific locations, says Nithya Nathan-Pineau, a policy attorney and strategist at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrants' rights."
Masked, plain-clothed immigration agents have been detaining people suspected of being undocumented, using unmarked vehicles, checkpoints, and sometimes forcibly removing people from cars. The agencies responsible for immigration enforcement were given wide powers after Sept. 11, 2001, including authority to question, search and arrest without warrants. Historically, enforcement involved targeted investigative arrests, but recent tactics have expanded into more aggressive street actions. The Immigration and Nationality Act requires cause or reasonable suspicion for warrantless arrests, yet the boundary between lawful enforcement and practices that test legal limits remains unsettled.
Read at www.npr.org
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