ICE Settlement For $1 Million Requires New Guidelines For Warrantless Home Raids

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is forking out $1 million and changing its policies after reaching a settlement Thursday with 22 Latino victims of warrantless home raids.

The settlement requires ICE to come up with new rules within two months to avoid further abuses resulting from home raids.

ICE officers inspecting homes without a warrant must now request consent to enter a private residence in a language understood by the resident and may not surround homes without permission.

“Immigrants across the country can stand up and cheer for what has been accomplished by this settlement,” said President of LatinoJustice PRLDEF, “No longer will ICE agents have free rein to invade the homes of immigrants, especially Latino immigrants, and be as abusive as they want without any worry that they might be reprimanded.”

The complaint in the case Adriana Aguilar et al. v. ICE alleged that ICE targeted Latino homes with teams of six to 10 armed agents without search warrants in search of undocumented immigrants.

In one case, ICE raided the home of a family of Latino U.S. citizens twice looking for a man that the family did now know, according to a press statement from the Center for Constitutional Rights, who represented the plaintiffs, along with LatinoJustice PRLDEF and Winston & Strawn.

Deportations have soared under the Barack Obama administration, topping 400,000 last fiscal year.