The Return of Longform. The Newsletter: The Falling of the Fourth Amendment
ICE Agents or Vampires? (Audio included)
After surviving some odd hybrid of the new COVID, a common cold, and insomnia, I was almost embarrassed at how TikTok kept my full attention over the last week. My content of choice? ICE raids on unsuspecting immigrants who had no idea why a life-sized G.I. JOE doll was trying to coax them out of their homes and onto the public street.
Video after video I scrolled and watched as these federal agents screamed that they did not need a warrant and ripped people away from their families with no regard for the Constitution or humanity. Thus, I thought…I should revive an old newsletter that vented about the shitty administration and its evil ways! Did you miss me?
Back a little older (it’s been a few years) and a little wiser (did I mention I graduated with my law degree a few months ago?), over the last few months my mind has been wondering to the 4th Amendment, as it often does when my brain tries to connect the legality of what federal agents do to people with no firm understanding of the law. So I wanted to share with you a couple things that you see on Law and Order every Thursday…(Can you believe they killed off Captain Cragen?!).
The Fourth Amendment states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Breaking down the fourth amendment by section, you can interpret it to mean that:
“The right of the people” extends to anyone. This particular amendment covers U.S. and non-U.S. citizens within the country, anyone breathing with two legs is covered.
“To be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” means the right of people to have privacy, or to not expect a violation by a state or federal worker into their personal space, homes, or things is reasonable against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” So they cannot be taken or arrested and their things cannot be taken or seized without an arrest warrant or a common sense reason….like that federal or state worker just saw them commit a crime and they are trying to apprehend them.
“...and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,” this means that a warrant was issued by a magistrate judge after they ruled the state worker had probable cause to arrest or take someone or their things
“Supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons, or things to be seized.” This defines everything that is needed for a proper warrant. So if the police ever come to your door and they are looking for your best friend and they have an arrest warrant for them it has to:
Be signed by a neutral magistrate judge that has nothing to do with you or the case
List your address and where in their house they know your friend is
List the probable cause for the warrant, the police cannot just be fishing for the person at your house
And it has to be signed under the oath that what is written in the warrant is truthful
Why is any of this relevant?
In my cough medicine fueled stupor, rarely did these ICE agents don’t have any of this shit, ever. They just knock on someone’s door, say that they have some paperwork that says Mrs. Gregorz is in the home that they are at, and that she needs to come outside because her VISA has expired.
But Mrs. Greagorz can be a whole naturalized citizen and the reports that ICE is reading could be wrong, but she is walking outside because these jacked up ninja turtles in Pooh Sheisty masks say so. And ICE is betting on her doing just that.
That is wrong! And it is unconstitutional…to a point.
Once ICE gets you outside of your home, it’s wrap. If you know you were not born in the United States the best advice I can give you is if you see ICE, do not even answer the door. They could use the fact that you answered the door as some warped way to say you consented to them being outside your property and just like that scene in Sinners…one pinky toe over the threshold and your rights are nonexistent because the 4th Amendment can’t protect you in the same way…you OUTSIDE.
However, the 4th Amendment can protect you while you are in the privacy of your own home rubbing your toes together and watching Netflix. And I want that for you. Just like a vampire, La migra cannot come into your home without your permission and whenever you answer the door or even show up to an immigration hearing, you are leaving that protection behind.
The 4th Amendment protects us all from illegal search and seizure. And while a lot of us use it to keep police from arresting us, and many attorneys took it to task during the era of legal stop and frisk and racial profiling, just because the boys in green are carrying out this madness instead of the boys in blue does not mean what they are doing is legal–regardless of who is telling them to. THIS IS ILLEGAL.
And I feel like I am screaming out into a void.
After hearing about the Black families in Chicago being ripped out of their apartment building in the middle of the night a couple of days ago, it’s become apparent that Trump’s 2025 plan of militarizing our cities with his own “secret police” aka ICE is becoming closer and closer to a reality. And as I study the ramifications of state governors deploying their national guards onto federal ICE members, I realise that that study is too late for those who don’t know their rights.
Without a judicial warrant, no one can use a buzz saw to come into your home and pull you out of it, zip tie you on the side of the street, and throw you in jail overnight and the majority of the time ICE agents do not have accurate paper work and when they do have warrants it is an administrative warrant which is not the same thing as a judicial warrant.
As the city of Chicago, ACLU, and many other organizations work to fight for the humans that were impacted by the Chicago South Shore raid, I implore you to stay vigilant because when it comes to ICE if Blue states are targets…Black people seem to be target practice.
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