Key Takeaways There are legal limits to when a federal immigration agent can pull over a vehicle, stop people on the street, or forcibly enter homes. The Trump administration, however, has adopted expansive interpretations of ICE’s authority and relies on technical loopholes to evade these limits. Vehicle stops have become increasingly common, with authorities often relying on apparent racial profiling. Federal agents’ recklessness in stopping vehicles has led to high-speed chases, crashes, and deaths. DHS has eliminated most oversight, gutting its own Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the body in charge of investigating alleged abuses committed by immigration authorities. The aggressive actions of federal immigration agents in Minnesota and cities around the country have drawn attention to an important truth: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP, which includes U.S. Border Patrol) agents are routinely going far beyond what the law allows them to do. Their aggressive tactics on the ground are backed up by unprecedented interpretations of their legal authorities, with the agencies secretly adopting aggressive new policies toward entering homes and making arrests without judicial warrants. In some cases, the Trump administration’s actions have taken advantage of broadly-worded provisions in federal law that they argue allow immigration agents a lot of power – despite what people’s common-sense intuitions might be about what is allowed. In other cases, agency guidance and lack of accountability have combined to undermine the force of law, allowing immigration officials to engage in widespread violations. What the Trump administration is doing cannot be stopped, or restrained, without understanding where these gaps are – between law, policy, practice, and common sense. This analysis looks at six key areas where immigration agents’ powers have come under scrutiny: vehicle and street stops; entering a home; arrests; workplace enforcement; and the use of force. Traffic Stops: Illegal Racial Profiling and Observer Harassment When can immigration agents legally conduct traffic stops? Federal agents cannot stop cars for traffic violations — that is only permitted by state and local law enforcement officers. Immigration agents are legally allowed to stop a vehicle only for the purposes of enforcing federal law – both immigration law, and criminal law. In either case, the agent must have a “reasonable suspicion” that someone in the vehicle is violating the law: either that they are committing a crime (including obstruction of federal law enforcement), or that they are removable under U.S. immigration law. “Reasonable suspicion” is a legal standard with specific guidelines, not just an officer’s personal opinion about what might be “suspicious.” Legally speaking, race or ethnicity are not sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion for enforcing immigration law – the agents must have some other indication that someone in the vehicle lacks legal status. There is one exception to the general rule that traffic stops require reasonable suspicion: immigration agents can set up random immigration checkpoints within 100 miles of the U.S. border. Agents can then stop and question all vehicles passing through the checkpoint without reasonable suspicion. However, even within the 100-mile zone, unless there is a checkpoint, immigration agents cannot stop individual vehicles without reasonable suspicion. In addition to federal agents making vehicle stops themselves, there are also circumstances in which they partner with state or local law enforcement, who will pull over a vehicle for a traffic violation and then have immigration agents —— or state and local law enforcement officers who are authorized to conduct immigration enforcement on behalf of ICE – question the passengers. Local police working with immigration agents pull vehicles over purportedly for minor traffic infractions but then have federal agents check whether anyone in the car is removable. In areas of the country where local law enforcement works closely with ICE – such as Tennessee or Texas – this has become routine. The Supreme Court has long held that “pretextual stops” — stops in which local police use a traffic violation as an excuse to question the driver or passengers, and potentially arrest them for other crimes – are permissible, despite the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on “unreasonable searches.” In practice, this allows local police to question vehicle occupants about something they lack reasonable suspicion for at the time. Even pretextual stops, however, require that law enforcement have reasonable suspicion to believe that a law or regulation has been violated. The law does not allow racial profiling as a basis for a vehicle stop – no matter whether federal or local agents are the ones pulling the car over. Because the government is not required to publicly explain why it stopped a particular vehicle, it can be challenging to prove that cars are being stopped simply based on racial profiling or other impermissible reasons. However, the 2018 lawsuit Castañon Nava et al. v. Department of Homeland Security et. al. documented widespread evidence of apparent racial profiling in the Chicago area and a practice of carrying out warrantless ICE arrests in violation of legal requirements. The Castañon Nava case resulted in a settlement agreement that not only requires ICE to train its officers on their uses of warrantless arrests but also requires ICE to document the circumstances of any given traffic stop, and to issue a policy limiting the use of traffic stops. Facts Matter. Immigration debates shape national policy, local communities, and millions of lives. The American Immigration Council provides trusted research, timely analysis, and accessible educational resources that help the public understand these issues. Your support keeps this information free, accessible, and available to everyone who needs it. What are immigration agents actually doing regarding traffic stops? Under the second Trump administration, vehicle stops have become increasingly common — cars are routinely stopped in the middle of the street. CBP’s Greg Bovino conducted a January 2025 raid in Kern County, CA that relied heavily on vehicle stops based on apparent racial profiling, before being tapped to orchestrate other immigration enforcement actions in Los Angeles, Chicago, North Carolina, and Minnesota. In addition to stops for immigration enforcement, ICE and CBP agents have routinely stopped vehicles and questioned the occupants in apparent retaliation for being followed by community members monitoring their activities. In many cases, they subsequently attempted to charge these community members with federal crimes. A Reuters investigation found that as of February 2026, over 650 people had been charged with what Reuters characterized as a “catch-all” law punishing anyone who “forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes” with federal agents. In January 2026, a federal judge ordered agents not to stop vehicles, or detain drivers and passengers, unless there was a specific articulable reason to believe they were “forcibly obstructing or interfering” — and spelled out that following federal agents at a safe distance does not count as a sufficient reason to justify a vehicle stop. That ruling has been stayed by the appeals court. Federal agents’ aggression and recklessness in pulling over and stopping vehicles have often led to high-speed chases and crashes, threatening public safety. Pedestrian Stops: Home Depot Sweeps And Coercive Tactics When can immigration agents stop someone on the street? Immigration agents — both ICE and CBP — are allowed to stop and briefly question someone that they suspect to be a noncitizen of the United States to ask about their immigration status. Federal immigration agents have no lawful authority to stop or question someone about their status if they know or suspect the individual is a citizen of the United States. Any person being stopped and questioned has the right to remain silent and walk away from an agent. While agents can stop and question someone on the street based on suspicion, they can only arrest a person if they have “probable cause” to believe that the person is violating U.S. immigration law. “Probable cause” is a higher standard than “reasonable suspicion.”. While a person being stopped and questioned is free to walk away from a conversation with a federal agent, if the agent has evidence of a legal violation, then the person can be subject to arrest and cannot leave. During the course of an immigration arrest, a person still has the right to remain silent. The basis for stopping and questioning someone cannot rely exclusively on their apparent race or ethnicity. However, in a September 2025 “shadow docket” ruling, the Supreme Court permitted the Trump administration to use race and ethnicity as one of a group of factors — along with speaking Spanish, or working in an immigrant-heavy profession such as landscaping or contracting — to establish reasonable suspicion in conducting immigration enforcement through “roving patrols” in Los Angeles. While the decision does not directly consider the constitutionality of using race alone for immigration enforcement, it gave federal agencies a green light to use race as a central factor in enforcement actions, emboldening their use of racial profiling. Separately, as federal law enforcement officers, ICE and CBP agents have the authority to stop and arrest people (citizens and non-citizens) who they believe are violating other federal laws — including laws against “impeding” or “obstructing” an investigation or other law enforcement operation. However, to arrest these people, they would need probable cause that a crime had been committed. What are immigration agents actually doing when they stop people on the street? Under the second Trump administration, immigration agents have a mandate to arrest and detain as many people as possible. As a result, pedestrian stops — which previously have not been a significant part of immigration enforcement — have become routine. Federal agents will often conduct sweeps in places they suspect undocumented immigrants to be – such as the parking lot of Home Depot, residential homes under construction, or on a scooter for a food delivery service. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling, these interactions have become known as “Kavanaugh stops.” ICE and CBP often conduct these stops in ways that make it hard for the people being questioned to assert their legal right to walk away. Federal agents are often armed. They may be masked or in military gear. They may not be identified as immigration agents. They may act aggressively toward the people they are questioning. All of these can give the impression that the person is required to answer their questions, even when the law says they are not. As seen in Minneapolis and elsewhere, anyone who encounters immigration agents and attempts to criticize or even simply to record them – or who is just on the scene observing or trying to help — can be subjected to aggressive questioning or other retaliation. Federal agents have attempted to charge protesters and observers with “obstructing” or “interfering with” law enforcement operations, sometimes arguing that by being in the way of federal agents or vehicles they are violating federal law. Furthermore, the Trump administration has taken the position that they are entitled to handcuff suspected noncitizens and take them to a second location for biometric screenings to prove their immigration status, using an app known as “Mobile Fortify” which the agency has told officers should be trusted above actual documentation of U.S. citizenship. In practice, this has led the agency to arrest noncitizens who are not violating any U.S. immigration law, but also U.S. citizens — despite the law prohibiting them from detaining anyone who they know or suspect to be a citizen. Federal agencies have been holding these people anywhere from several minutes to several hours while transporting them to a secondary location for scanning. Arrests: Redefining “Likely to Escape” To Create a Catch-22 When are immigration agents legally allowed to arrest someone? Federal agents (including ICE and CBP) are allowed to arrest anyone for whom they have a warrant signed by a federal judge, or an “administrative warrant” filled out by ICE. In addition to the I-205 form, issued for people who have already been ordered removed by an immigration judge, ICE can issue an I-200 form — which they also call an “administrative warrant.” — This form is used for anyone federal agents believe to be present in the United States in violation of federal immigration law. Someone may be the target of Form I-200 if they are in removal proceedings before an immigration judge; if their visa has expired and they do not appear to have left the United States; or if they have been arrested by another law enforcement agency that shares information with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that shows they are removable. Under some circumstances, ICE and CBP can arrest someone even without having a warrant. There are two requirements for a warrantless arrest: agents must have probable cause to believe that the person is in the United States without valid legal status, and agents must determine that the person is a “likely to escape” if not immediately arrested. Both requirements must be fulfilled in order for an agent to arrest a person. For decades, “likely to escape” has been understood to mean that the person is a “flight risk” — that if they were released, they would probably abscond from federal law enforcement and fail to appear for their immigration proceedings. In other words, the agent must not only believe that the person is removable, but that simply giving them a Notice to Appear before an immigration judge for removal proceedings would not be enough — they must be arrested and detained to guarantee they appear in court for their immigration court hearing. To make this determination, an agent must consider the details of a person’s circumstances — such as how well established they are in their community. This interpretation was upheld by federal courts around the United States in 2025 and 2026. Additionally, under certain circumstances federal immigration agents have the authority to conduct arrests without a warrant for violations of federal criminal law — such as laws against “impeding” or “obstructing” law enforcement operations. What are ICE and CBP using to justify arrests now? Under the second Trump administration, immigration agents have expanded both their use of “administrative warrants” to arrest people, and warrantless arrests — reportedly in a manner that violates the legal requirements for both categories of arrests. Instead of