By: Dominic Charles
Published: March 18, 2026
Immediately following the Trump Administration’s August 11, 2025 order declaring a crime emergency in Washington, D.C. (DC), masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers descended on DC neighborhoods, bringing fear and stoking backlash.[1] Journalists and concerned neighbors have vigilantly documented ICE operations to combat its pervasive presence in DC’s Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights neighborhoods—which are recognized hubs of DC’s Hispanic community.[2] Four days after the Administration’s order, ICE officers filmed themselves tearing down signs in Mount Pleasant’s main square, leaving an adult sex toy in their place.[3] Since then, ICE officers have abducted a man dropping off his child at school, smashed car windows while seizing a man working as a landscaper, positioned themselves in front of school parking lots, indiscriminately detained people on Piney Branch Parkway on their morning commute, and threatened onlookers with pepper spray.[4] Courts should exclude any evidence resulting from these raids and others like it because ICE violates detainees’ Fourth Amendment rights with these heinous acts.[5] Justice Sotomayor railed against similar enforcement activities in her dissent of the Supreme Court’s emergency order in Noem v. Perdomo—which temporarily allows ICE to detain people based solely on race, language spoken, and occupation in California—writing, “we should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino.”[6]
Even though the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution seemingly protects all people from unreasonable search and seizure by ICE agents, the Supreme Court has limited Fourth Amendment protections for people subject to civil immigration enforcement.[7] In I.N.S. v. Lopez-Mendoza, petitioners were detained at their place of employment without a warrant or reasonable suspicion.[8] The Supreme Court acknowledged that immigration officials violated petitioners’ Fourth Amendment Rights, but held that only the most “egregious” Fourth Amendment violations warranted review in the context of civil immigration proceedings.[9] The Court did not provide a way to measure egregiousness, arguing that the I.N.S. could have violated the Fourth Amendment if it engaged in more widespread transgressions.[10]
Following I.N.S. v. Lopez-Mendoza, the Circuits developed two tests to measure egregiousness—the officer bad faith test—where an egregious Fourth Amendment violation occurs anytime an official should have known their conduct would result in a constitutional violation—and the more stringent totality of the circumstances test.[11] In DC, ICE’s actions have cleared the totality of the circumstances standard for Fourth Amendment violations, thus, the exclusionary rule should apply.[12] ICE’s detention of Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights residents has been particularly suspect because detainments have been conducted violently, in sensitive locations, and based solely on racial considerations.[13] The time has come for the Supreme Court to revisit the egregiousness standard set out in Lopez-Mendoza, because ICE has committed widespread Fourth Amendment violations across Washington, DC—and the rest of the country—as non-criminal detainments rose 807% from January to June 2025.[14]
The Third, Eighth, and Fourth Circuit Courts of Appeals employ the most stringent egregiousness test, utilizing a totality of the circumstances approach.[15] Factors include: (1) where officers detained a petitioner, (2) whether officials employed physical abuse or coercion, (3) whether a detention was solely based on race, and (4) whether the officer’s violation was part of a widespread pattern of violations.[16] In Olvia-Ramos, petitioners alleged that ICE officers unlawfully forced themselves into their homes and the homes of others when participating in immigration enforcement operations.[17] The Third Circuit remanded the case for further proceedings after the immigration judge did not inquire about the nature of ICE’s violations, opining that widespread unlawful entry may satisfy the egregiousness test.[18] In Puc-Ruiz, the Eighth Circuit found that an officer lacking probable cause to execute an arrest cannot satisfy the egregiousness test.[19] Instead, to satisfy the egregiousness test, the petitioner must show that his arrest involved an unreasonable use of force and that it was based solely on his appearance.[20] In Yanez-Marquez v. Lynch, the Fourth Circuit found that ICE’s unauthorized entry into the detainee’s home at 5 a.m., where officers detained the petitioner at gunpoint, did not satisfy the egregiousness test because ICE possessed a valid warrant for a search between 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and the magistrate judge had probable cause to issue that warrant.[21] Thus, ICE’s Fourth Amendment violation did not warrant the exclusionary rule because it was not an egregious violation.[22]
With its enforcement operations in DC’s Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods, ICE has cleared the stringent totality of the circumstances egregiousness test. Therefore, any evidence procured from these raids should be suppressed.[23] In the month since the Trump Administration’s emergency order, ICE officers have shattered car windows, dragged detainees out of their vehicles, conducted raids near churches and schools, and established checkpoints where officers only stopped work trucks.[24] Further, this ICE activity has been widespread.[25] From August 11th through August 26, 2025 there have been approximately 500 immigration arrests in Washington, DC.[26]
Unlike the arrests in Puc-Ruiz v. Holder and Yanez-Marquez v. Lynch, arrests in Columbia Heights feature multiple Fourth Amendment violations.[27] The detainments in Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights satisfy three—and arguably four—of the egregiousness factors.[28] Officers solely considered race when they stopped work trucks at ICE checkpoints on Piney Branch Parkway.[29] ICE officers utilized excessive force when they dragged delivery drivers off their mopeds and when they smashed a driver’s window in Columbia Heights and dragged him out of his car.[30] ICE implicated detainees’ Fourth Amendment rights when it arrested people near privileged areas like churches and schools.[31] The widespread nature of these Fourth Amendment violations also favors an egregiousness finding when analyzing an individual’s detainment.[32]
In I.N.S. v. Lopez-Mendoza, Justice O’Connor ruled that the Supreme Court would revisit the egregiousness rule it created in that case if Fourth Amendment abuses became widespread.[33] The Supreme Court must formulate a new rule given events in DC’s Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights neighborhoods last Fall[34] Even if the court refuses to revisit the I.N.S. v. Lopez-Mendoza egregiousness rule, ICE’s actions have satisfied the most burdensome totality of the circumstances egregiousness test employed in the Third, Fourth, and Eighth circuits.[35] Hence, any evidence gathered during these raids should be suppressed.[36] Alternatively, the Supreme Court could decide to effectively obliterate the scant Fourth Amendment safeguards provided by the egregiousness test if it affirms the immigration regime it endorsed on its emergency docket in Noem v. Perdomo.[37] If the Court decides to take the Nation down that dark path, then the rest of the country may begin to look like Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights—where neighbors are violently detained solely based on the color of their skin.[38]
[1] See Olivia George & Joy Sung, Trump’s Crackdown, 30 Days Later: A Timeline of what Happened in D.C., Wash. Post (September 9, 2025), https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2025/trump-dc-federal-takeover-key-moments/ (reporting on the detainment of delivery drivers and protests against ICE’s enforcement actions).
[2] See Teo Armus, et al., Bondi’s Edict to End D.C. ‘Sanctuary Policies’ Raises Immigrants’ Alarm, Wash. Post (Aug. 15, 2025), https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/08/15/dc-police-immigration-ice-bondi/; Lucian Perkins, Lucian’s Substack, Substack (Sept. 4, 2025), https://lucianperkins.substack.com/notes.
[2] See Yanez-Marquez v. Lynch, 789 F.3d 434, 454 (4th Cir. 2015) ((ruling against suppression because ICE officers had a valid search warrant issued with probable cause despite officers executing the warrant at the wrong time).
(describing neighbors’ reports of ICE arrests); Mark Tesone, Fury in Mount Pleasant: How Government Policies Combined to Originate a Latinx Disturbance in Washington, D.C. in 1991 at 6-7 (Master’s thesis, Harvard University) (ProQuest) (explaining that during the 1980s Mount Pleasant transformed from a predominantly African American neighborhood to one with white, African American, and El Salvadorian residents).
[3] Alex Koma (@alexkoma.bsky.social), Bluesky (Aug. 15, 2025),https://bsky.app/profile/alexkoma.bsky.social/post/3lwhguqpsb22r (documenting ICE agents posing for a picture before tearing down a pro-immigration banner).
[4] See Perkins, supra note 3.
[5] See Yanez-Marquez v. Lynch, 789 F.3d 434, 454 (4th Cir. 2015) ((ruling against suppression because ICE officers had a valid search warrant issued with probable cause despite officers executing the warrant at the wrong time).
[6] 606 U.S. __, __ (2025) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting).
[7] See I.N.S. v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1050-51 (1984) (determining that the exclusionary rule, created to protect Fourth Amendment rights by excluding illegally obtained evidence from a hearing, does not apply to civil enforcement actions where credible evidence is gathered from peaceful arrests); cf. U.S. Const. amend. IV. (protecting all people from unreasonable search and seizure).
[8] See generally I.N.S., 468 U.S. at 1035-38 (ordering the deportation of the petitioners).
[9] Cf. id. at 1050-51 (1984) (ruling against the suppression of evidence from a search conducted without a warrant).
[10] Id.
[11] See Yanez-Marquez v. Lynch, 789 F.3d 434, 454 (4th Cir. 2015) (explaining that under the officer bad faith test, a constitutional right must be established by the context of the issue).
[12] See Perkins, supra note 5 (observing ICE officers apprehending individuals in work trucks on Piney Branch Parkway); cf. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 649 (1961) (defining the exclusionary rule of evidence as excluding evidence from a court proceeding that is obtained through a Fourth Amendment violation); Yanez-Marquez, 789 F.3d at 460-61 (describing the Third and Eighth Circuits’ “totality of the circumstances” egregiousness test, which includes factors like where the seizure took place, whether there was coercion and physical abuse, and whether the detention was based on race).
[13] See Perkins, supra note 5 (describing ICE officers smashing car windows in during detainment actions).
[14] Cf. Jose Olivares & Will Craft, ICE Arrests of Migrants with no Criminal History surging under Trump, the Guardian (June 14, 2025), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/14/ice-arrests-migrants-trump-figures (reporting that the rapid increase of detainments has resulted in a lack of meaningful oversight).
[15] See Yanez-Marquez, 789 F.3d at 454 (opposing the Ninth Circuit’s more lenient bad faith test).
[16] Id. at 460-61.
[17] See Oliva-Ramos v. Att’y Gen. of U.S., 694 F.3d 259, 261-64 (3d Cir. 2012) (alleging that ICE forcefully entered petitioners’ home and did not permit petitioner to eat for fifteen hours).
[18] Id. at 282.
[19] Puc-Ruiz v. Holder, 629 F.3d 771, 778-79 (8th Cir. 2010).
[20] See id. (rejecting petitioner’s claim even though officers had no probable cause to arrest him for serving alcohol without a license because he did not own and operate the establishment).
[21] See generally Yanez-Marquez v. Lynch, 789 F.3d 434, at 438-41 (describing officer’s holding pregnant petitioner at gunpoint and inhibiting her from finding additional clothing).
[22] See id. at 469-70 (finding that ICE did not employ excess force when detaining petitioner).
[23] See Perkins, supra note 5 (describing ICE utilizing violence to detain suspects); cf. Oliva-Ramos v. Att’y Gen. of U.S., 694 F.3d 259, 282 (3d Cir. 2012) (ordering that petitioner have ability to establish the government was engaged in widespread Fourth Amendment abuse).
[24] Perkins, supra note 5; Jake Horton & Aisha Sembhi, Videos show Impact of Trump’s Crackdown in One DC Neighbourhood, BBC, (Aug. 26, 2025), https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1le1zpqyzlo.
[25] See Jake Horton & Aisha Sembhi, Videos show Impact of Trump’s Crackdown in One DC Neighbourhood, BBC, (Aug. 26, 2025), https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1le1zpqyzlo (reporting that half of the 1,000 arrests in DC since Trump’s emergency order have been immigration-related).
[26] Id.
[27] See Puc-Ruiz v. Holder, 629 F.3d 771, 778-79 (8th Cir. 2010) (ruling against the suppression because petitioner needed to show that his arrest was based on racial consideration and involved physical force in addition to lacking probable cause); Yanez-Marquez v. Lynch, 789 F.3d 434, 469-71 (4th Cir. 2015) (ruling against suppression because ICE officers had a valid search warrant issued with probable cause despite officers executing the warrant at the wrong time).
[28] Cf. I.N.S. v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1050-51 (1984) (pledging to revisit egregiousness rule if 4th Amendment violations became widespread); Yanez-Marquez, 789 F.3d at 460-61 (4th Cir. 2015) (laying out the Third and Eight Circuits’ “totality of the circumstances” egregiousness test, which includes factors like where the seizure took place, whether there was coercion and physical abuse, and whether the detention was based on race).
[29] Perkins, supra note 5. See Puc-Ruiz, 629 F.3d at 778-79 (8th Cir. 2010) (finding that petitioner needed to demonstrate that his detainment was based solely on race).
[30] Compare George & Sung, supra note 2 and Horton & Sembhi, supra note 25 (describing ICE officers’ use of force during detainment), with Oliva-Ramos v. Att’y Gen. of U.S., 694 F.3d 259, 261-64 (3d Cir. 2012) (asking whether there was an excessive use of force when determining egregiousness).
[31] Perkins, supra note 5. Cf. Yanez-Marquez, 789 F.3d at 460-61 (4th Cir. 2015) (describing the Third and Eighth Circuits’ “totality of the circumstances” egregiousness test, which includes factors like where the seizure took place).
[32] Cf. Oliva-Ramos, 694 F.3d at 282 (3d Cir. 2012) (remanding case to allow petitioner to establish egregiousness by demonstrating widespread Fourth Amendment abuse).
[33] See Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. at 1050-51 (1984) (finding that the exclusionary rule applies to civil immigration proceedings for egregious Fourth Amendment abuses).
[34] Cf. Perkins, supra note 5 (describing ICE arrests involving force, profiling for work trucks, and near schools).
[35] Yanez-Marquez, 789 F.3d at 454 (4th Cir. 2015) (detailing the Ninth Circuit’s more lenient bad faith test).
[36] Cf. id. at 460-61 (describing the Third and Eighth Circuits’ “totality of the circumstances” egregiousness test, which includes factors like where the seizure took place, whether there was coercion and physical abuse, and whether the detention was based on race).
[37] See Noem v. Perdomo, 606 U.S. __, __ (2025) (Kavanaugh, B., concurring) (granting stay of lower court order, allowing ICE to find reasonable suspicion based on race and occupation).
[38]Cf. Noem v. Perdomo, 606 U.S. __, __ (2025) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (warning that if the Supreme Court allows ICE to detain people based on accent, race, and occupation, the government will be able to seize people based on the color of their skin).