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View Full Version : Is this proper ICE agent conduct?


xaiegen
Aug 13, 2008, 01:25 PM
Today I was studying when 5 ICE agents came into my house looking for a fugitive who no longer resides there and we have no knowledge of his current residential address. They asked me to come into the living room and I complied asking if we can bring this outside. I overheard the agents saying, 'it's fine we've established he's not here.' The next question I asked is do you have probable cause to be in my home? They answered we have a warrant for the arrest of such and such to ensure he attends his court date. I repeated if that was enough probable cause to be in my home and they answered we have a warrant and your father gave consent to let us in your home. There was nobody there to interpret to my dad what the warrant entails specifically in Indonesian and he wanted these agents to see there was nothing to hide, so he let them in without knowing he had basic human rights. So I asked to see the warrant or if I could copy it to show our lawyer about this event, and they refused saying it had nothing to do with my family, but it was enough grounds for them to come into my family's home?

Then one ICE agent started threatening me saying my conduct could cost my family our upcoming court case and is that what I want by thinking I'm an attorney to ask about probable cause for them to be in my home. He got in my face, although he's taller, so our bodies were close when he said this and started asking to see my ID. He threatened to tag my ID due to my conduct since I was a college student and checked my status. One of the other agents threatened that "I better write God's honest truth in the applications" and I asked him "which applications?" and he said "your school applications, because we'll get you on anything you falsify." Then, the first agent made a comment about them leaving, but told my dad to make sure "to deal with me for my conduct in treating a law enforcement agent this way."

Is there any misconduct on the ICE agents' parts? Is my conduct within my rights to ask for probable cause and to see warrant information?

I'm 21, so my dad is not allowed to use the method to "deal with me" the way I feel the agent was implying he wanted. Also, one of the other agents kept stepping in to explain my side of the situation. So it feels like something's not right about the egotistical ICE agent's behavior.

If I'm in my rights, what do I need to lodge a complaint? I feel he's tarnishing my case over his inability to check his patience.

Lowtax4eva
Aug 14, 2008, 01:35 PM
It all goes back to did they ask to be let in and did the homeowner say "yes". It seems that they did ask and were told yes. Once they're in your home they were allowed to search and if you interfered yeah I guess they could charge you with something.

They didn't however. You could file a complaint and explain your father didn't understand what was going on if you want... who knows where the complaint might lead.

I doubt they will actually do anything about your school applications or this "court case" you mentionned, it was probably just baseless threats to keep you out of their way and to make you answer their questions.

Fr_Chuck
Aug 14, 2008, 06:03 PM
If the person at the door let them in, then they had a right to be in the house. After that if they have an arrest warrant and there is a known address for that person, in most cases that does give them the right just to enter the home and look to see if he is there. They do not need a search warrant. They can not look in any place large enough to hold a person, but not in small draws and so on.

xaiegen
Aug 15, 2008, 11:44 AM
Thank you for your responses. It gives me a little peace of heart.