How we can stop the unlawful arrest of U.S. citizens

By: Micaela LS

December 1, 2025

he occupation of Charlotte last month by an army of masked federal agents has seriously jeopardized the public trust in law enforcement. It may be months or even years before we have a full account of the impact that the occupation had on residents across our state. Of course, what North Carolina witnessed was just a glimpse of what people living in other occupied states have been facing since the summer. In July, for instance, ICE stopped 25-year-old George Retes as he was driving in his car in California. The agents broke into his car window, and sprayed him with tear gas. During his arrest, he was put in an isolation cell and held for three days, forcing him to miss his daughter’s third birthday party. Even though he was covered in pepper spray, the agents never allowed him to shower, and they never bothered to look at his ID once. Had they done so, they would have discovered that George Retes is not only a U.S. citizen, but he is also an Army veteran who served our country. 

The potential for immigration enforcement agents to wrongfully arrest U.S. citizens has been heightened since September, when the Supreme Court issued an opinion allowing ICE to profile people based on subjective factors like race, accent, dress, and occupation. Retes is just one of at least 170 U.S. citizens who, as of October, have been wrongfully detained by immigration enforcement officials. Given the cavalier approach to immigration enforcement that we saw in Charlotte last month, that number may have already increased. 

Making immigration stops based on race is a bad idea. For starters, it feeds into stereotypes and targets brown-skinned people when the United States is supposed to be a country that doesn’t discriminate based on race. It also creates fear among communities of color and violates the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. In a recent NPR interview, Scott Detrow and Jasmine Garsd talked about how Latinos are living in fear. Detrow described a conversation he had with a Latino immigrant who has been living in the United States for 25 years and is now hiding in his own house. The man told Detrow, “America is for white people now,” which shows how minorities are starting to feel unwelcome in the United States.

It’s also hard to square profiling with the Constitution. An article by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute reminds readers that the 14th amendment “guarantees equal protection under the law regardless of appearance, occupation, origin, or language.” Profiling for immigration stops clearly violates this important constitutional guarantee. It also violates the fourth amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. 

With U.S citizens being detained, profiled, afraid to go outside, and their constitutional rights threatened, we must demand that our elected officials pass legislation requiring immigration enforcement officials to obtain a signed judicial warrant before making immigration stops. The U.S. Congress stipulates that a judicial warrant “[requires] probable cause, and limits the invasion by specification of the person to be seized.” Requiring judicial warrants would make it to where ICE, CBP, and other immigration enforcement agents provide sufficient evidence that someone is unauthorized to live in the U.S. before making a stop. Showing a neutral judge enough proper proof to get the warrant signed would mean fewer U.S. citizens being profiled and detained. A judicial warrant would allow a judge–whose job is to interpret the law–to decide if there is reasonable suspicion that a person is undocumented, and a judge would ensure that the constitution would not be violated when making the detention or arrest. 

Proponents of the current immigration enforcement policy argue that it takes too much time and evidence to get a judicial warrant, which would result in ICE agents not being able to make haste during operations. While a judicial warrant does take additional time, it’s worth it. It would allow U.S. citizens, people like George Retes who served our country and have a right to equal treatment under the law, to not have to live in fear or have their constitutional rights violated again.

The United States was founded on accepting immigrants who came to this country, and was built by people trying to seek the “American Dream” to improve their lives. Racial profiling destroys this core value and paves the way for any group of people–not just Latinos–to become a potential target for government harassment and detention. In the short run, racial profiling will lead to less diversity and could shift the perception of what it means to be American, to the exclusion of brown-skinned Latinos. In the long-run, it can lead to more discrimination and profiling. Today, people who “look” Latin American are the main target of immigration enforcement sweeps. Tomorrow, it could be people who “look” African, Asian, Middle Eastern, or even European. And since ICE and CBP don’t always bother to check people’s IDs or listen to them when they insist they are U.S. citizens, the current immigration enforcement policy puts us all at risk.

It is up to us as U.S citizens to uphold our core values that make the United States the land of opportunity and that make it unique, so that we never forget the words by Emma Lazarus that are etched on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, [and] the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” We should not only remember these words, but we should carry them into the future. Our nation is at its best when it stands for hope, light, and opportunity, so let’s not hand it over to despair, darkness, and discrimination. Instead, let’s carry on the morals this country was built upon and ensure that liberty and justice are truly for all.