There are many circumstances in which law enforcement will have violated the law themselves in carrying out their duties, which violations can give rise to a means of ending the deportation proceedings without a deportation. These are also known as motions to suppress as they serve to “suppress” or erase the proofs obtained by law enforcement that the government needs to prove its case before the court.

FOURTH AMENDMENT

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that all law enforcement stops, searches and arrests must be pursuant to an objectively reasonable suspicion of unlawful behavior. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that “egregious” violations of the Fourth Amendment should produce the immigration court’s ruling for termination of proceedings. Where immigration officials have made arrests based upon purely racial motives or where a search or seizure was improperly severe, this argument can greatly benefit a respondent in immigration court.

FIFTH AMENDMENT

The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution require due process of law, meaning fair treatment by government officials throughout the proceedings. The Fifth Amendment also enshrines our right to remain silent, to not inculpate ourselves through our own statements. In INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, an important U.S. Supreme Court case in this area, the immigration authorities’ repeated denial of a detained immigrant’s request for counsel, was seen as illegal government action.

REGULATORY VIOLATIONS

When immigration authorities violate their own regulations, which were written with the purpose of protecting noncitizens, and where the violation prejudiced the noncitizen in the proceeding, the deportation proceeding should terminate. The Board of Immigration Appeals ruled in Matter of Garcia-Flores, 17 I&N Dec. 325 (BIA 1980), that this was appropriate wherever the government’s violation of their own rules produced a harm to the immigrant’s case.