What basic rights do people have if ICE stops them? A lawyer explains

A sense of anxiety is gripping many noncitizen residents of the United States.

The second Trump administration kicked off with a shock-and-awe effort aimed at arresting and deporting many immigrants without legal status. But across the country, stories are now emerging of both longtime legal permanent residents and visa holders being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other immigration officers.

This week, Rumeysa Öztürk, a 30-year-old Turkish graduate student at Tufts University, was surrounded on the street by plainclothes immigration agents with covered faces and then detained. A nearby resident whose security camera captured the arrest said, “It looked like a kidnapping,” The Associated Press reports.

Öztürk was lawfully in the U.S. under a student visa. She was then sent to a detention center in Louisiana. Last year, Öztürk co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts University student newspaper criticizing the school’s response to the war in Gaza.

At a Thursday news conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio — the son of Cuban immigrants — said his State Department is revoking student visas as part of its response to pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses.

“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses,” Rubio said, estimating that more than 300 visas had been revoked.

Raha Wala, a lawyer and vice president of strategy and partnerships with the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), an advocacy organization, says that despite what feels like the Trump administration suppressing free speech, immigrants should know they have constitutionally guaranteed rights to due process in the United States.

Wala explained on Morning Edition some of the fundamental rights people have if detained by federal agents:

Wala says to remember the basics.

If someone is stopped by ICE or other law enforcement agents working on immigration enforcement, Wala says that everyone has the right to remain silent and advises remaining calm.

“You don’t have to share anything about yourself, including your immigration status,” Wala said. “And they have an obligation to treat you with respect and due process under the law.”

“Am I being detained?”

In the case of Öztürk, Wala says that she could have walked away in the situation and sought shelter in a place clearly marked as private, something the NILC recommends in one of its know-your-rights fact sheets. But there are limits.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, if they have a valid judicial arrest warrant, they do have the right to detain you,” Wala said. “But one question you can always ask is, ‘Am I being detained?'”

Wala says agents do have to answer whether they are lawfully detaining and bringing someone into custody.

Rules vary by immigration or legal status.

Different rules do apply, Wala says, depending on whether someone is a U.S. citizen, a green-card holder, a visa holder or a person who doesn’t have legal status.

“One thing the Supreme Court has been really clear about is that green-card holders, lawful permanent residents, have something akin to the rights of American citizens,” Wala said. “And we have seen this administration violating even those norms.”

But Wala added that the “most important thing to remember is that, no matter who you are or where you’re born, what your immigration status is, you do have constitutional rights here in the United States.”

Are people at risk of detainment when reentering the U.S.? 

Wala says that oftentimes at ports of entry, you do see diminished rights, adding that it’s always important to be careful in those situations. Law enforcement officials can ask people about their immigration status at the border or at airports.

“But again, when you are in the United States, on U.S. soil, you still have fundamental rights to due process and the constitutional protections that are afforded to you for free speech,” Wala said. “And this administration seems to be throwing that entire idea of constitutional protection out the window.”

This digital article was edited by Treye Green. The radio version was edited by Lisa Thomson and produced by Nia Dumas.