The Brief

Masked, plain-clothed agents are grabbing people they believe are undocumented immigrants off the streets, pulling them into unmarked vehicles and swiftly detaining them.

In other cases, masked agents are running checkpoints in the middle of Washington, D.C., and in L.A., and questioning people in their cars.

And in some situations, agents are smashing the windows of those cars in order to pull a person out.

Immigration agents are often given wide latitude in their work. That means a lot of what the public has been witnessing since President Trump took office — and may be shocked by — is likely legal.

But what is allowable is becoming more unclear as these tactics test the limits of the law, according to immigration law experts. 

"In that sense it is a very confusing time for lawyers and the public alike," says Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the UCLA School of Law's Center for Immigration Law & Policy.

NPR asked immigration law experts to explain what we know is and isn't legal when it comes to immigration enforcement.

Q. Federal law gives immigration officials power to arrest and question immigrants. What are those powers? Can they make arrests without warrants?

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency in charge of immigration enforcement, was created after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Congress gave the burgeoning agency wide power to question, search and arrest immigrants, or those believed to be immigrants, without a warrant.

In the past, that has looked like investigative police work and arresting specific targets in specific locations, says Nithya Nathan-Pineau, a policy attorney and strategist at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrants' rights.

The Immigration and Nationality Act states that in order to arrest someone without a warrant, officers must have cause, or reasonable suspicion, to believe that a person is in the U.S. illegally and likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.

"Leaving aside border checkpoints, immigration officers have power to consensually question anyone, just like a police officer does; but to detain someone even briefly they require individualized suspicion that the person is violating the immigration laws," UCLA's Arulanantham says.

In the past, immigration officers would look for specific people who had, say, a final removal order issued against them or someone who was convicted of a crime – something that would render an individual deportable, Arulanantham says.

Now, in some cases immigration officers are executing major dragnets and arresting large groups of people and then determining if each person is in the U.S. illegally by interrogating them after they've been stopped.

That happened in Los Angeles this summer, when immigration agents stopped people based on their perceived race or ethnicity, according to a lawsuit filed by ACLUSoCal, among others. The plaintiffs argue these actions violate the Fourth Amendment's right to privacy against unreasonable searches and seizures.

A federal court agreed, ruling that agents can't rely on factors such as race, speaking Spanish, wearing workman-like clothes, and location (being present at places such as carwashes or Home Depot parking lots) to meet the standard of "individualized suspicion."

What is supposed to happen and what is happening are two different things, however.

"In the last few weeks it seems that immigration enforcement officers appear to be flouting the judge's order, perhaps because the case is now at the Supreme Court," Arulanantham says.

ICE didn't respond to NPR's questions on how it addresses the individualized suspicion metric.

Q. Are immigration enforcement agents allowed to wear masks or otherwise refuse to identify themselves? 

Immigration agents conduct an operation at a car wash on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025, in Montebello, Calif.

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The widespread masking of immigration agents in the streets and even in federal courthouses has stoked fear among immigrant communities and strong objections from civil rights groups. But acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, has said it's a necessary response to what he describes as efforts to dox and threaten these agents and their families. ICE has said there has been a dramatic increase in the doxing of agents but has not said how many cases there have been or provided any details. The agency has not provided any information to support their assertion of an increase in agent doxxing.

But Nathan-Pineau says this violates a federal requirement that immigration agents identify themselves as agents as soon as it is "practical" and "safe" to do so during an arrest. (They are not, however, required to provide their personal names.) She says the regulation is interpreted as agents are allowed not to identify themselves during emergency situations where they have to work fast. But she says she doesn't think the current situation constitutes an emergency that would justify agents not identifying what agency they work for.

At the time of publication ICE had not responded to NPR's question on how the "emergency" element had been defined previously, or whether it has changed, or whether agents not identifying themselves is consistent with policy.

While ICE leadership has endorsed agents' use of masks, and the federal law doesn't mention the use of masks explicitly, there are efforts by lawmakers across the country to bar federal agents from hiding their faces outside of medical or tactical reasons or for undercover work. But there are no current laws requiring agents to show their faces.

Q. Where can officers make arrests? Can they arrest people in their home or a private business?

Immigration officers must have a warrant to arrest people at private businesses or homes. However, there are areas outside homes or in and around apartment buildings and businesses that can be considered public spaces. Immigration agents can, and have, made arrests in those types of areas, such as the lobby of an apartment building that's open to the public or parking lots.

Private businesses have the right to decline entry to ICE.

However, ICE agents have used deceptive practices to gain entry into a person's home or business to make arrests without a warrant, according to a lawsuit filed in 2020 against DHS. This has included ICE agents wearing vests that say "POLICE" and misrepresenting themselves as police or probation officers to trick people into allowing them into their homes or businesses. Four years later, a federal court ruled against this practice called 'knock and talk,' putting a stop to it.

Adding to the confusion, by both subjects of investigations and bystanders, is the fact that ICE agents occasionally take part in broader criminal investigations Similarly, there are rules governing law enforcement's right to search and question a person.

At border checkpoints, like at airports or land crossings, agents have wide latitude to ask questions, search people and detain individuals, Arulanantham says. Otherwise, it's important to understand the difference between a consensual encounter with immigration agents, where people have the right to leave the conversation, and actual detention.

People hold signs warning drivers of a checkpoint in the northern part of Washington on Aug. 30, 2025.

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"The first question anyone should ask if they feel uncomfortable when approached by any officer is 'Am I free to leave?' If the officer says they are, then they should exercise their right to leave," Arulanantham says. "If the officer tries not to answer, the individual should repeat the question until they get a response."

"If the officer says 'No,' then the person should not resist, but need not cooperate in any other way," he continues. "So they need not answer any questions."

In general, a person doesn't need to cooperate in any search if officers do not have a warrant, Arulanantham says.

Q. What are the rules on use of force?

Immigration agents are allowed by law to use force when they have "reasonable grounds to believe that such force is necessary," according to DHS policy.

However, the law states an immigration officer should "always use the minimum non-deadly force necessary to accomplish the officer's mission and shall escalate to a higher level of non-deadly force only when such higher level of force is warranted …"

And DHS policy encourages agents to use de-escalation techniques, less-lethal force and less-lethal devices, such as pepper spray and flashbang grenades, in achieving their goals. And they are to only use force that is "objectively reasonable."

It's unclear what the agency considers "objectively reasonable," says Nathan-Pineau.

There have been dozens of recorded instances where agents have smashed car windows in order to pull out suspects. ProPublica reported nearly 50 such instances across the country in the first six months of President Trump's second term.

The government keeps "no relevant statistics" on how common this tactic was previously, according to the outlet. ICE had not responded to NPR's question on this tactic or questions on whether their use of force policy has changed.

"The tremendous use of force that is being used to arrest people is honestly really disturbing to watch," Nathan-Pineau says, citing the incidents of window smashing and agents tackling people in public.

And it's been difficult to determine whether ICE has made changes in its use-of-force policy, she says. "Because the most recent policy that we can find certainly says that the type of force that we're seeing is for emergency situations." Nathan-Pineau says it's helpful that bystanders are increasingly recording these interactions with immigration authorities, but she has seen that immigration officers are intimidating and even arresting these public observers of raids.

That is happening, Arulanantham says, even though federal law allows bystanders the right to record "so long as they are not interfering with the arrest."
Copyright 2025 NPR

The developer of ICEBlock, an iPhone app that anonymously tracks the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, has sued the Trump administration for free speech violations after Apple removed the service from its app store under demands from the White House.

The suit, filed on Monday in federal court in Washington, asks a judge to declare that the administration violated the First Amendment when it threatened to criminally prosecute the app's developer and pressured Apple to make the app unavailable for download, which the tech company did in October.

Following Apple ejecting ICEBlock, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that "we reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so."

Lawyer Noam Biale, who filed the suit against the administration, said Bondi's remarks show the government illegally pressuring a private company to suppress free speech.

"We view that as an admission that she engaged in coercion in her official role as a government official to get Apple to remove this app," Biale said in an interview with NPR.

The Justice Department did not return a request for comment, but Trump administration officials have said the app puts the lives of ICE agents in danger.

When reached for comment, Apple also did not respond. The lawsuit, which does not name Apple, says the tech giant bowed in the face of political pressure.

"For what appears to be the first time in Apple's nearly fifty-year history, Apple removed a U.S.-based app in response to the U.S. government's demands," according to the suit.

Developer calls immigration crackdown 'abhorrent'

Joshua Aaron, the Austin, Texas-based developer of ICEBlock, said he launched the app as a way to empower those opposed to Trump's immigration crackdown.

"It was just the best idea I had to do everything I could to fight back against what was going on," Aaron said in an interview, describing Trump's immigration enforcement blitz as "abhorrent."

The app allows people to report an ICE agent sighting within a 5 mile radius, similar to how map apps, like Waze and Google and Apple Maps and others, alert drivers to police setting up speed traps. The ICE sighting alerts do not include photographs or videos and expire in four hours.

Yet the Trump administration has portrayed the app as being used to incite violence against ICE agents, something Aaron denies. An analysis of federal court records does not back up the administration's claim that violence against ICE agents has spiked.

Aaron's lawsuit says Bondi is mischaracterizing the purpose of the app.

"Fundamentally, ICEBlock neither enables nor encourages confrontation — it simply delivers time-limited location information to help users stay aware of their surroundings in a responsible and nonviolent way," according to the lawsuit.

Attorney General Bondi, in a July interview with Fox News, suggested Aaron was under investigation and had committed a crime. "We are looking at it, we are looking at him, and he better watch out, because that's not protected speech," Bondi said.

To legal experts, ICEBlock is latest "jawboning" example

To First Amendment advocates, the White House's pressure campaign targeting ICEBlock is the latest example of what's known as "jawboning," when government officials wield state power to suppress speech. The Cato Institute calls the practice "censorship by proxy."

ABC's suspension of Jimmy Kimmel after FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened regulatory action and Bondi promising a crackdown on hate speech following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk are two other prominent instances.

"The use of a high-level government threat to force a private platform to suppress speech fundamentally undermines the public's right to access information about government activities," said Spence Purnell, a resident senior fellow at R Street, a center-right think tank. "If high-level officials can successfully silence political opposition, it sets a dangerous precedent for the future of free expression in this country."

Genevieve Lakier, a First Amendment scholar at the University of Chicago Law School, said the White House's campaign against ICEBlock shows the administration using what has become a familiar playbook: "To use threats of adverse legal and financial consequences, sometimes vague sometimes not so vague, to pressure universities, media companies, law firms, you name it, into not speaking in the ways they like," she said.

One potential weak spot for the lawsuit, however, is a lack of direct evidence that Attorney General Bondi, or other administration officials, made threats against Apple to have the app removed, rather than merely convinced the tech company to do so.

"And government officials do not violate the First Amendment when they persuade private speech platforms to suppress speech because that speech poses a national security risk or is harmful in some other way," Lakier said. "They only violate the First Amendment when they coerce or attempt to coerce the private platform to suppress the speech."

Since Apple kicked ICEBlock out of its app store, it cannot be downloaded now, but those who had it on their phones before the ban can still use it. Being removed from the app store prevents Aaron from sending the app software updates, which could eventually make it glitchy.

Aaron said he hopes the suit will lead to ICEBlock being restored to the iPhone app stores and for a clear message to be sent to the Trump administration that prosecuting him for his role in developing the app would be illegal.

Aaron said he and his legal team "have been preparing for this fight," adding that "we will take it as far as it needs to go to ensure this never happens again."
Copyright 2025 NPR

Twelve FBI agents who were fired this year for taking a knee during racial justice protests in the heated summer of 2020 are suing the Bureau and its director, alleging unlawful retaliation.

The former special agents—who together have nearly 200 years of experience—once received awards for helping disrupt mass shootings, expose foreign spies and thwart cyber attacks.

But they say as elite federal law enforcement agents, they never received training on crowd control, nor did they have riot shields, gas masks, or helmets when they faced down volatile crowds in the streets of Washington, D.C., in June 2020.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington on Monday, described the small group of FBI agents as vastly outnumbered and literally backed against the wall of the National Archives building as unrest swept the country over the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Court papers said they kneeled not to reflect a left-wing political point of view, but rather to de-escalate a situation that threatened to spin out of control.

"Mindful of the potentially catastrophic consequences, Plaintiffs knew that a split-second misjudgment by any of them could ignite an already-charged national climate and trigger further violence and unrest," said the lawsuit, filed by former Justice Department prosecutor Mary Dohrmann of the Washington Litigation Group.

Accused of 'lack of impartiality'

The Justice Department inspector general reviewed the incident in 2024 and found no misconduct. But the episode went viral on social media, attracting critics who cast the kneeling as a political act. Before he returned to the White House, President Trump also posted a negative story about the matter.

Soon after new FBI Director Kash Patel joined the Bureau this year, the lawsuit said he began targeting the agents involved in the episode for retaliation. Several of plaintiffs were yanked from supervisory roles at the FBI. Officials launched a new investigation. The matter was still pending when they were all fired in September, shortcutting typical procedures for FBI misconduct probes.

In their dismissal letters, Patel wrote: "You have demonstrated unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to the political weaponization of government."

During his confirmation hearing, Patel told senators he would honor the internal review process. But the lawsuit accuses him of breaking that pledge for his own political purposes.

The abrupt departure of the fired agents disrupted important work, including evidence collection in Utah following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and efforts to support the Trump administration's executive order on "Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful," court papers said.

The case alleges violations of the agents' First Amendment rights to free association and their Fifth Amendment right to due process. They're asking to be reinstated to their jobs and for back pay.

The FBI declined to comment on pending litigation.

Copyright 2025 NPR

A drawn out battle over a city law boosting the minimum wage for tourism workers in Los Angeles seemed like it was finally over this fall when a referendum to overturn it failed to gather enough signatures.

Now there's another twist in the road. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson previously voted to raise airport and hotel worker pay from $22.50 to $30 an hour by 2028, when L.A. will host the Olympics. But in a motion filed Friday, he's proposing that the increase take effect more slowly, instead reaching $30 an hour in 2030.

Harris-Dawson's proposal sparked outcry from hotel workers union Unite Here Local 11 and other labor advocates.

“These workers fought for more than two years to improve their working conditions, only to have the very people who should defend them try to take it all away," Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said in a statement. "It’s heartless, it’s callous, and it deepens the crisis of working poverty that is gripping our city.”

Labor advocates say Harris-Dawson is succumbing to pressure from corporate interests.

Over the summer, a coalition of business leaders filed a ballot proposition to repeal the city business tax, which brings in hundreds of millions of dollars to the city. The L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce told LAist the proposition was partly in response to the City Council boosting the minimum wage for tourism workers.

Unite Here Local 11 filed its own raft of proposals, including raising the minimum wage citywide and requiring Angelenos to vote on building new hotels and event center developments. This war via ballot proposition led city leaders to encourage both sides to come to a compromise.

A spokesperson for Harris-Dawson said the city is currently in talks with business and labor interests, and declined to comment further on his recent motion. Mayor Karen Bass's office did not respond to a request for comment.

The motion now goes to council committees on tourism and jobs.