Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, activity has erupted all over the country at a rapid pace. This is part of a mass deportation initiative that President Trump promised in his election campaign. 

With recent killings and commotion concerning ICE, there is a lot to know. 

ICE agents are going to immigrant-populated areas and deporting those without legal citizenship. Recently, agents have been authorized to profile individuals based on their names, accents, skin color, and other characteristics, following the US Supreme Court’s decision to lift a lower court order that previously prohibited such profiling.

Agents are using AI software such as facial recognition to gain access to individuals, as well as ruses used to gain entry to homes or find people. As part of the ruses, they may also be wearing clothes masking their identity, such as items of clothing covering their badges and head-covers. While ICE is not allowed to enter homes with an ‘ICE warrant’ (not a judicial warrant), they have gained more leeway in stopping individuals in public places.

Recent killings in the news have circulated and brought fear to documented citizens as well, due to the killings being against people not directly targeted but instead caught in the crossfire of ICE operations. Legally, agents are prohibited from retaliating against being filmed, talked back to, or a citizen exercising their rights. ICE can stop, detain, and arrest people they suspect of being in the US illegally.

The BBC quotes Chris Slobogin, director of the criminal justice programme at Vanderbilt University Law School, “Under the US constitution, law enforcement “can only use deadly force if the person poses a serious danger to them or other people, or the person has committed a violent crime”.

You are allowed as a citizen to choose to stay silent, ask to see a warrant, or not consent to a search if stopped by ICE.