The killing of a U.S. citizen by federal agents during a demonstration in Minneapolis, Minnesota, against President Trump’s immigration crackdown has sparked outrage and prompted further protests.
Alex Preti, 37, a U.S. citizen, is the second person shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents this month.
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Videos of clashes between ICE agents and Minneapolis residents have flooded social media, showing some of the city’s 3,000 police officers stopping residents, questioning them and detaining them.
In one case, immigration officials removed an American of Hmong ancestry from his home in his underwear. In another incident, the father of a 5-year-old girl was briefly detained and restrained with zip ties after federal agents said he was falsely accused of not being a U.S. citizen because of his accent. The agency is also under investigation for reports that it sent a 5-year-old boy to knock on the front door of a home to lure a relative out, after which officers detained him.
The incident sparked protests and confusion over what ICE is legally allowed to do in public and private places. Are there limits on when and how ICE can approach and detain people? Does the law distinguish between encounters in public and private spaces such as homes? And is the Supreme Court becoming more tolerant of ICE’s aggressive actions?
Legal experts exchanged opinions on the constitutional protection of citizens from entry prevention and detention.
What rights do people have if they are approached by ICE?
Federal law gives immigration officials the power to arrest and detain people believed to have violated immigration laws. However, all persons, including immigrants suspected of being in the United States illegally, are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment.
“All law enforcement officials, including ICE, are bound by the Constitution,” said Alexandra Lopez, managing partner of a Chicago-based law firm specializing in immigration cases.
The Fourth Amendment does not prevent ICE from attempting to deport people who violate immigration laws, but it has traditionally constrained ICE. The broader the enforcement action, the higher the hurdle for immigration officials to justify their actions.
For example, the Supreme Court ruled that while police officers can question someone in public, broader interactions, such as short-term detentions that are not formal arrests, require a “reasonable suspicion” that someone has committed a crime or is in the United States illegally.
Michelle Goodwin, a Georgetown University law professor, said reasonable suspicion “has to be more than a guess or a guess.” To meet this standard, a reasonable person must have a suspicion that a crime is being committed, has been committed, or will be committed.
Before investigators can arrest someone, they have to meet a higher bar. They require “probable cause,” which typically requires sufficient evidence or information to suggest that a person committed a crime.
What is “Kabanostop”?
Historically, the Supreme Court has ruled that racial or ethnic profiling is unconstitutional. But a recent opinion by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh gives ICE more discretion to use race as a factor in stopping and questioning people.
In the 2025 Noem v. Perdomo case, Kavanaugh was one of six justices who voted to suspend a lower court’s ruling in favor of the plaintiffs who challenged federal immigration enforcement tactics in Los Angeles, California. Kavanaugh wrote that “apparent ethnicity” can be used as a “relevant factor” in determining reasonable suspicion, as long as it is not used alone but in combination with other factors.
Before Kavanaugh wrote this, courts “often held that agents couldn’t stop someone just because they looked like an immigrant or were in a high-crime area,” Lopez said. But if immigration officials follow Kavanaugh’s lead, it would “give ICE significant profiling discretion and legitimacy.”
Critics of Kavanaugh’s opinion “argue that the term ‘relevant factors’ invites abuse and opens the door to ethnic profiling,” said Rodney Smolla, a professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School.
But because Kavanaugh’s opinion was not co-signed by other justices and was based on a procedural rather than a substantive ruling, its legal impact may be limited. Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, said the Supreme Court “has not issued a final ruling on the Kavanaugh stop and its admissibility.”
Mr. Somin and other legal analysts said Mr. Kavanaugh appeared to scale back his racial and ethnic support as a factor when he wrote a separate opinion months later in Trump v. Illinois, which blocked the Trump administration’s deployment of the Illinois National Guard.
Are people’s rights different at home and in public?
The Supreme Court has generally ruled that law enforcement cannot enter a private home without a warrant signed by a judge unless the resident consents, and the government is required to provide evidence of probable cause.
“This means that the person inside the home generally does not have to open the door or have a conversation with the investigator, and may require the investigator to slip the warrant under the door or hold it up to the window,” Smola said. There are some exceptions, such as when an officer encounters a violent crime in progress or someone in need of medical care.
Lopez said securing judicial warrants takes time and is typically limited to high-priority cases where crimes other than immigration violations are suspected. “It’s much easier for ICE to arrest individuals in public places,” she said.
Until now, federal immigration officials typically could only enter a home without a judge’s approval with an administrative warrant issued by ICE. Some lower courts have ruled in the past that entering a home without a judicial warrant violates the Fourth Amendment.
Certain ICE officers have the authority to issue administrative warrants. The warrant requires “reasonable cause to believe” that the person named in the warrant is subject to removal. But they have not been reviewed by anyone in the judiciary.
The Associated Press reported on January 22 that a leaked ICE memo allows entry into homes without consent using only an administrative warrant as long as a final eviction order is in place.
The Associated Press, citing a whistleblower, said the memo is being used to train new ICE officers and that “officers still in training are being told to follow the memo’s guidance rather than written training materials, which actually contradict the memo.”
A memo dated May 12, 2025 and signed by Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons stated that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “has not historically relied solely on administrative warrants to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence,” but added, “The DHS Office of General Counsel has recently determined that the United States Constitution, Immigration and Nationality Act, and immigration regulations do not prohibit reliance on administrative warrants in this matter.” the purpose”.
It is unclear whether this policy would be ruled constitutional if challenged in court.
What can people do if they believe ICE is violating their Fourth Amendment rights?
If you believe your rights have been violated, possibly resulting in injury or property loss, your options for suing to recover compensation are limited.
Unlike many state laws, federal law generally prohibits civil lawsuits against federal officials for violating people’s rights. A 1971 Supreme Court decision temporarily relaxed these prohibitions, then re-enforced them.
Irwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and Bart Newborn, professor emeritus of law at New York University, wrote, “In one case, the Supreme Court held that people who were illegally removed from the Social Security disability rolls and lost their income could not sue, even though they had no due process. In another case, the court declared that a man who died of cancer because the prison repeatedly denied him medical care could not sue.”
David Rudofsky, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said there may be an opportunity to sue under another law, the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Still, he said plaintiffs will face tough challenges. “It’s not an easy road, and most people can’t afford a lawyer.”
