Ferino-Sanchez v. Sessions — Fourth Circuit

The American Immigration Council, in collaboration with the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild and the ACLU of Maryland, filed an amicus brief arguing that any Fourth Amendment violation by state and local law enforcement officers — not just egregious Fourth Amendments violations — should require the suppression of evidence in immigration court proceedings, which is the same standard that applies in the criminal justice arena. The Supreme Court held in INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032 (1984), that the exclusionary rule generally does not apply in civil removal proceedings where federal immigration officers violated the Fourth Amendment. That case, however, is not controlling where state or local officers committed the constitutional violation, and the rationale of the Supreme Court’s decision strongly supports applying the exclusionary rule in such circumstances.