Fifteen ways immigrants can protect themselves if ICE shows up at work

Two months into President Donald Trump’s second term, immigrant communities in Minnesota have reported reduced traffic at local businesses. ICE agents have arrested laborers at their workplaces, leaving documented and undocumented Minnesotan immigrants wondering what rights they have in the state.

On Wednesday, March 26, Sahan Journal spoke with two staff attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, Ben Casper and Alicia Granse, to ask what they believe undocumented workers should know about immigration enforcement in the workplace. During an hourlong livestream, hosted on Instagram (and posted on YouTube), Casper and Granse offered advice about how workers can protect themselves, what documents they should keep on hand, and what employers can do to help protect their staff.

Here are 15 key takeaways that the ACLU Minnesota lawyers shared during our conversation.

Disclosure: For this story, Sahan newsroom staff used artificial intelligence to help us quickly transcribe audio from the livestream and compile an outline of key takeaways. A Sahan reporter and editor took these starting materials to draft the list, above. Using AI allowed us to efficiently adapt our live video interview into a story for Sahan’s website.

Immigration resources 

• Know Your Rights presentation request and guides
• ACLU-MN Know Your Rights (KYR) with ICE Training Request Form
• Know Your Rights: What to Do When Interacting with ICE videos available in Spanish, Urdu, Arabic, Haitian Creole, Russian, Mandarin and French. The videos cover rights during the following situations ICE is Outside our Doors, Inside our Home, In Our Communities, In Our Streets and If ICE Arrests Us. 

Community Partners

• Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota
• COPAL MN
• Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid
• UNIDOS MN

Do you have questions about immigration you want answered? Are there topics you’d like us to explore through this Sahan Instagram Live series? Let us know by sending an email to our community engagement manager Hannah Ihekoronye at hihekoronye@sahanjournal.com. 

Watch a recording of the livestream and read the full, lightly edited transcript below. 

Alberto Villafan
I was waiting for a go ahead from one of my superiors. I either way. Well, we’ll hold on just a little bit. We’re just gonna let people trickle in a little bit, and you guys can just enjoy the dulcet sound of my voice.

Alicia Granse
You got a good very nice thank you very nice voice.

Alberto Villafan
Thank you very much. I can turn on the professional one every now and. Then Ispecifically went school to be a anchor or a radio host.

Alicia Granse
Oh, really?

Alberto Villafan
Now I’m here. Really.

Ben Casper
Yeah, you got the voice for it.

Alberto Villafan
Thank you. I praise that part of myself very much. All right, is it two? I think it’s two o’clock. All right. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. My name is Alberto Villafan. Alberto Villafan, if that’s a little easier for you, I’m the Digital producer at Sahan journal, and today, Sahan is partnering with the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota for this Instagram Live, this nonpartisan organization focused on the protecting and promoting civil liberties and civil rights through litigation, public education and advocacy in Minnesota, I’m joined by two of its staff attorneys, and I’m going to let them introduce themselves. Alicia, do you want to go first?

Alicia Granse
Sure. Thanks, Alberto. My name is Alicia Granse. I’m a staff attorney with the ACLU of Minnesota, and I will pass it to my colleague, Ben.

Ben Casper
iI’m Ben Casper, and I’m also a staff attorney at the ACLU of Minnesota. My office is across the hall from from Alicia, and I work mostly in immigration issues, but, yeah, that’s what I do.

Alberto Villafan
Thank you so much, both of you, again. This is Ben and Alicia of the ACLU. Today, as some of you may know, we’re going to be talking about workplace protections, immigrant workplace protections in Minnesota. If you have questions for experts regarding this topic, please send them into the chat. We’ll be filtering those through. We’ll be answering them as best we can. I’m going to warn you guys, though, we are not able to offer legal or specific legal advice. This is simply fielding questions, clearing disinformation and helping you guys stay a bit more informed.

To kick off the event, though, I have a couple questions of my own. Let me pull them up real quick. So broadly, simply, you know, what rights do employers and employees have if ICE shows up at their workplace? Looks like I have Ben in the queue right now. Do you want to answer first?

first?

Ben Casper
Well, you named a bunch of people there. Generally you have constitutional rights

when if ICE comes to your place of employment. You’re the employer the public space they they may be able to enter the public area, but you can maintain your privacy. You do not have to answer questions as an employer, unless you’re audited. You can be audited in certain situations, for the for the paperwork that people have to file on an i nine form in order to get a job. But that requires certain process. But if that’s that’s not usually ICE agents, as you typically think of them, you know, conducting arrests or raids if they do come to your office then or to your place of work, you have the right to remain silent as an employee, as an employer, you’re not obligated to no you have constitutional rights to remain silent and request that a lawyer be present for any for any interview that they’re going to have with

Alberto Villafan
You. And what would you advise like employees who are who are in fear of ICE showing up at the workplace.

Ben Casper
Well, I mean, I think first of all, keep your rights in mind. It’s very hard to remain calm. And fear is is a tool that ICE uses, just like police views to get people to forget about their rights and share information. Might not be in their interest, but you have that constitutional right to remain silent. Insist on speaking to a lawyer. You don’t, you know. You don’t want to run. You don’t want to be resistant or violent in ways that could escalate a situation and cause problems, but, but you have those constitutional rights, and you should stick to them.

Alberto Villafan
Remain calm and remain quiet. Alicia, what are your advice?

Alicia Granse
I mean, I think that’s a great point. Remain calm and make a plan. Um, you know, think about in advance places that you can go, like our website, for example, for tips on on your rights. Or, you know, not tips, but doc, we have documents about knowing your rights in these specific situations. So you can, you know, post those, make a plan for how you’re going to be interacting with ice at work. You can talk to your coworkers about it. You can all talk about your rights. You have the right to talk about your rights and other people’s rights.

Ben Casper
So and you could practice what it would be like with each

Alicia Granse
other. You can certainly practice, you know, having somebody act as an ICE agent and you exerting or your right to remain silent, or, you know, you’re you can say, I do not consent to a search. I do not consent to talk with you. So you can, you can role play all this stuff, you know, kind of fake it till you make it, type of a thing

Alberto Villafan
similar to behavior. If you’re confronted with a police officer, basically like, remain calm, remain quiet. You can refuse a search unless they have, like, a

Ben Casper
date. And you can ask. You can ask, Am I under arrest? Am I free to go? And they have to answer that question. They won’t always answer it directly or easily, but you have a right to ask. I

Alberto Villafan
know, in our last Instagram Live, if you weren’t able to join that, we defined like, what type of circumstances, what types of warrants were necessary to allow ICE to detain, question, etc, enter your own homes. Are there? What are the specific warrants that allow ICE to come at you? Basically, they’re

Ben Casper
the ones that they never have, almost never have. There’s a difference between warrants that do give a police officer an ICE rarely a nice officer right to search someone’s home. Those are called judicial warrants. They’re issued by judges. They’re based on someone making a showing

Alberto Villafan
real quick. Ben, do you mind? Like speaking up just a smidge? Yeah. Thank you. Better, yeah. You

Ben Casper
know a judicial warrant has to be signed. By a judge after they’ve been convinced in advance by the police or by ICE that there is some criminal activity ongoing and they have a right to enter someone’s property, but they almost never have that. They have what’s called an administrative warrant. If it’s ICE, you can ask to see it, and there’s materials on our website and other places where you can actually learn how to distinguish them, and you can ask them, Do you have a judicial warrant if they come to your house, for example, don’t open the door. You don’t you don’t have to open the door. And opening the door can, can, can be interpreted as consent to come in at your house, and you don’t want to do that, you can demand through a closed door or a chain door, you know, identify yourself. Do you have a judicial warrant and make clear that you don’t intend to allow them consent to a search and that you intend to remain silent and speak to an attorney if it’s going to go any further than that,

Alberto Villafan
Alicia, can you? Alicia, can you two things? One, you mind also speaking up with a smidge more Sure. Thank you very much. That’s perfect. Two, can you, can you tell me how I would be able to identify a judicial warrant versus an administrative ward? Like, what are some of the signs that I should know to tell the difference

Alicia Granse
Sure. Well, an administrative warrant is going to have, they’re going to look a little different. They’re going to be shorter, right? So, first of all, an ICE administrative warrant, or an ICE administive, it’s a request, essentially, it’s going to have, it’s going to say something like a form 207, or is it 247, but they’re going to be numbers on it, like it’s not going to be this is a search warrant. It’s not going to say that. You’re also not going to see a signature of a judge. So on the search warrant, there should be a date and time of the judicial officer who’s signing that warrant. A judicial warrant is also going to have a description of the places and things that the officers are authorized to search, and will be in a narrative form. Oftentimes, an ICE warrant will just be like a tick box, like I want to, I want to arrest this person, or I want to go to this place, and it won’t have like a narrative description, or it won’t talk about why. And you know, an ICE warrant isn’t going to be signed by a judge, and it should say Judge, an ice warrant will be signed by an ICE officer, another ICE officer, maybe, or even the one that’s trying to execute the warrant. So that’s, that’s, you know, they, they’re, you know, two pieces of paper, but they do look different.

Alberto Villafan
Ben, this next question is for you, even if so, if they have a warrant, they ICE agents are basically, if they have the proper warrant, they’re allowed to enter the workplace period. Am I understanding that correctly?

Alicia Granse
If they’re allowed, it depends on what they’re what the warrant is for. So if so, a warrant, a judicial warrant needs to describe a person or a place or a thing that they want to either search or arrest. So you can have a judicial warrant to search, and you can have a judicial warrant to arrest. And so if they have a judicial warrant, which they probably won’t, and they go to a workplace and they say, Look, I have this arrest warrant. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they get to go into the workplace and find that person. They can go into the workplace anywhere that’s public, if they have an arrest warrant. But it doesn’t mean that they get to search the whole workplace.

Alberto Villafan
It’s this very specific circumstance for this very specific person. It can only apply to this one instance, basically, right? Yeah,

Alicia Granse
it’s, it’s supposed to be specific, and that’s a judicial warrant, right? And that’s what we’re talking about when you like, when they actually have the right to go in somewhere, it has to be supported by this judicial warrant.

Alberto Villafan
And that’s, that’s a rarity, relatively speaking, correct? Yes. Okay, so if, if an ice agent does appear at my workplace, or, let’s say I am a business owner, they appear at my store. I have employees whatever. Can I simply tell ice leaf, I don’t want you here. You’re not allowed to be here. Am I allowed to say that? You’re allowed to say that? Yes, and do they have to respect that?

Alicia Granse
Well, that’s another, I mean, that’s, that’s the question, right? I mean, as the business owner, you get to say, in in a and I’ll talk about this in two different ways of as a business owner, you know, it’s your property, but there’s places that are probably open to the public and places that are open only to employees, or that are private. So. Like an office or a locker room, kitchen or a kitchen that, you know, not everybody can go into. So ice can go into a public area. They don’t have to have permission. If it’s open to the public, ice can go there. They can’t go in to those private areas without permission. You know, as a business owner, you can also tell ice, I don’t want you on my public on my property. You know, business owners do have the right to say people have to leave. You know, that’s something that we you know, you see it on doors when you go into, you know, restaurants, you know, they have the right to refuse service or something. Yeah, yeah, whether or not ice is going to respect that. And what you do in response is up to you. And I think, you know, people need to, like we talked earlier, you need to make a plan about what you contemplate doing in order to, you know, protect your property, protect your workers, protect yourself. So do you have a right to tell ice to leave? You do? Whether or not they respect that and how you interact with that is going to be up to you.

Alberto Villafan
So are there, are there any consequences if ice does overstep their warrant, like if they do force themselves into the workplace, what are their repercussions?

Ben Casper
I mean, the Constitution does have limits, and, you know, a violation of someone’s constitutional rights is something that you can sue over. I think Alicia can tell you in greater detail that that is very difficult kind of case to actually win anything over. I mean in terms of money, in violation of your rights, and in most cases, that’s pretty hard in federal courts. But yeah, I mean, if, if they, if they illegally enter your home or your workplace, or, you know, violate the law in order to extract information from you, you can take legal action against them, or in certain cases, you might be able to object. If they tried to start removal case against you or put you in front of an immigration judge, you could object and say, I didn’t consent to any of this. None of this evidence should be used against me. So sometimes that’s a way that you can protect yourself if your rights have been violated. Having a lawyer is pretty important to being able to do that, and you are not entitled to a lawyer in immigration court the way you are in most criminal courts. If you’re facing a significant criminal charge, you have the right to have a lawyer, but you don’t have the right to have a lawyer paid for you, provided for you.

Alberto Villafan
I thought that was the entire point of the Constitution, was that I am entitled to a fair trial, though, is that not is not having a lawyer provided for me. You know, is that not a violation of the Constitution?

Alicia Granse
Well, you’re you’d you have a right to a criminal lawyer in a criminal trial, right? Okay, so, and the state is supposed to pay for that, and can’t afford it. It’s not the same for an immigration because we, well, one, we don’t call it a trial. If it’s an immigration proceeding, it’s a civil proceeding. So, and not everybody knows the difference, but basically, criminal law is when the the possible consequence is you going to jail or prison, right? So you’re being punished for something you did. Immigration Law is a civil law, which means you’re not going to be put in prison, although you are often detained. That’s what they it’s a it’s really a distinction without a difference. It’s something that lawyers say, right? You’re so you’re in jail, but you’re not in criminal jail, but the consequence of your or at the end of your proceeding in immigration court is not that you’re going to go to prison, it’s that you’re going to potentially be removed to an to either your country of origin or somewhere else, like we’ve seen happening lately where Venezuelans are being sent to El Salvador.

Ben Casper
That’s not common, but it’s happening.

Alicia Granse
Apparently it can. So you don’t have a right to a paid attorney in a civil immigration proceeding. You can have one, but you have to pay for it, or you have to get somebody at one of these wonderful nonprofit organizations to do it for you.

Ben Casper
To be very clear, you do have a absolute legal right and a constitutional legal right to have a lawyer. You just have to pay for them yourself. You can’t be denied the right to bring a lawyer with you. But you do not have money. Is everything, really, and most of the time if you can’t afford it, yeah. Than most people do go through immigration court proceedings with all those consequences, which are often much, much higher in the end, deportation from your family than the consequences of a criminal law, you know, but, but that’s, it’s a it’s um, it’s a you want to have a lawyer and but most people go through those proceedings in immigration court, the vast majority alone, without one.

Alberto Villafan
I have a question from our audience real quick. Um, so this is verbatim, does a person on a sidewalk slash in the public. Right of Way have any means of getting out of dealing with ice, if ice comes up to them asking for their ID. So if an ice agent approaches me just randomly in a park, what can I do?

Alicia Granse
You can say, I don’t want to answer any of your questions. Simple as that, simple as that,

Alberto Villafan
and they can’t proceed any further.

Alicia Granse
I mean, this is again, the question of what your rights are and what consequences will be for you know how you interact with law enforcement and ice so you know you can say, I don’t consent to be searched. I don’t want to answer any questions. I want to talk to a lawyer and a nice agent. Could say, oh, okay, great, and go about their merry way. They could also continue to ask questions and try to get you to talk to them and try to you know, they could try to detain you. They could, you know, handcuff you. They could put you in their car. And, you know, again, this is where we would talk about trying to get a remedy, or trying to get help afterwards. Yeah, so you know, if you’re on a school or on a school sidewalk, on a sidewalk, sorry, if you’re on just a sidewalk, you don’t have as many protections as you do, like in a house, right? Because we’re out in the public, and the way that we think about search and seizure rules and search and seizure laws is your reasonable expectation of privacy, so you or like, you know where your person is as well. And so on a public thoroughfare, on a public road, you just have fewer protections, but you still can say, I don’t want to ask, I don’t want to answer any questions, I want to talk to a lawyer, and then they will do what they do.

Alberto Villafan
Beyond that, it’s really whether or not they actually respect their boundaries, right?

Alicia Granse
Yes.

Alberto Villafan
So if, if an agent is like, demanding, repeatedly, demanding that they see my ID, do I have to do? I have to dish that out? Or, can I just not pull out my wallet? Can I just not go any further? Do I have that right?

Alicia Granse
Well, so in Minnesota and I’ll bring it specifically back you. We are not a state where you have to identify yourself. So if a police officer says, I want to see your identification, you don’t have to give it to them. You don’t have to tell them your name. So you don’t have to again. It depends on whether or not they respect that, and how far you’re willing to go to not give them that information, right? And I’m not trying to scare people, but, you know, if they, if they keep getting more aggressive and more escalating, you know, you got to think about, you know, what, what are you willing to? You know, how are you going to protect yourself, both, you know, but from giving them information, but also physically?

Alberto Villafan
So we keep talking about how you are entitled to a lawyer. You have the constant right to an to a lawyer granted in an immigration court in immigration proceeding, correct? Immigration proceeding, you’re not entitled to one provided to you, right? I guess. How-how would I be able to find a lawyer where I’m getting at, you know, if I don’t have the money, I don’t have the resources, or, much less, know how to find one? How can I how do I find one?

Ben Casper
I mean, like I was saying before, the vast majority of people who go through immigration courts, a lot of them are detained the whole time in the conditions you did subscribe, no money, no resources. Short answer is, it’s very hard. There’s limited opportunities. There are nonprofit organizations in town here. We’ve got the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota down, down the few blocks here from your station and and there are private lawyers who who do work on a, what they call a pro bono basis for free. That’s a, you know, an ethical obligation of every lawyer to provide at least some service free, to make sure there’s access to the courts. But the reality is, ICE Immigration is one of the is the most by far, well resourced law enforcement bodies in the world, in the United States, you know, has probably a budget of some place in the order of eight, $9 billion among other enforcement agencies. It’s probably total of like 25 north that billion dollars a year, just for immigration law enforcement, and they have lawyers and represent their side in immigration court. Most people, because they don’t have resources, end up going it alone, and it makes all the difference very often, but the best you could do, you are entitled, and they’re in immigration courts and are required to provide anyone who shows up without a lawyer a list of free legal services that they can at least call and try to get one.

Alberto Villafan
So even if I don’t know where to get one, at the very least when I do appear in court, I will be provided at least some resources to find one. You

Ben Casper
will be provided a list of of free legal services, and in turn, you could call them see if they have anyone who could talk to you. They often will do an intake with you and screen you and maybe able to give you basic, high level legal advice, even if they can’t represent you, yeah. And then give you referral lists to other lawyers, some of whom might, most of whom probably charge money, but some of them might charge money and occasionally take take on cases for free. Yeah. In addition, there are some law clinics at law schools that do free work, and some of them are will be on those lists. They they don’t take as many cases as legal aid offices, but, but, but there are limited resources, far fewer than can match the need of people who are in immigration court.

Alberto Villafan
Can I ask, like, how? How long is this process? Typically like, from is detention the right word, or at least being detained by an ice agent, to entering immigration court, how long is that process, and also one more time? Ben, do you mind speaking up just a little more? Yes, sure.

Ben Casper
It depends. I mean, there’s two main cracks. One is for people who have been arrested by ice, and they’re being detained by ICE, so they’re being held the whole time they’re in court. Those cases can proceed relatively quickly, so it might be a period of days or weeks before you appear in front of an immigration judge the first time. If you fight your case forward, it might be a period of weeks or months until you have a final hearing and it’s concluded. Other people either are initially detained or never detained, but they’re put in immigration court proceedings in front of an immigration judge, but aren’t in jail nodding. They’re not locked up during the during the case, those cases go much slower. Usually takes a period of months before between the time you were initially in contact with ice, and the time you appear for your first court hearing, and then, if you fight it out to a, you know, a merits hearing, if you contest your case, or you apply for asylum or or that individual more hearing where you present your evidence and fight the charges that can take years because the system is so backed up. Yeah,

Alberto Villafan
so I guess. How likely would it be? How likely is it that I would be able to find a lawyer on one of those first instance, one of those shorter notices, you know, is it often that people basically representing themselves in immigration court most

Ben Casper
often. Yeah,

Alicia Granse
it’s hard.

Alberto Villafan
It’s hard. Sounds extremely difficult. I’ve got another audience question over here. Let’s see. There has been reporting about DHS, slash ice working to get info on undocumented taxpayers from the IRS. If that comes to pass, how drastically will that change the situation for undocumented workers? Anyone want to take up that question or try their best?

Alicia Granse
If you feel like you can answer that question, go for it. I don’t know if I know enough about that.

Ben Casper
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think there are data privacy laws and generally, just because they’re both in the part of the federal government doesn’t mean that they just automatically share your tax information. Generally, your tax information is going to be private. The details however it there. It does appear that the Trump administration is trying to create new space for ice to make contact with IRS in order to verify whether or not addresses they have for a given individual they’re looking for appear to be current, according to Iris now, that’s my understanding of where that that policy is now, and that would be different than than past practices. Don’t know if it’s going to be challenged legally, but there isn’t just open book to go in and look at everyone’s tax records and you know how much you made, where you work, where you work now, who you who your kids are, what they’re that that sort of information does have protections, Data, practice, protections that ice can’t normally

Alberto Villafan
easily overcome. Normally, you say, Well, I mean,

Ben Casper
if you are in an immigration case, if you’re applying for a certain form of status, maybe through a marriage, maybe through work, or if you’re in immigration court and you’re applying for asylum or another form of, you know, relief to stay in the country. Typically you will have, in that situation, burdens. You’ll have to come forward and prove your case, and part of it will be, did you pay taxes? Then you have to show your taxes. But that’s very different. That’s you giving them the information that you need to provide. Yeah, in that context, but as a as a matter of investigating and looking for people who aren’t already in their sites or system there, it isn’t the case that ice can just access all of your data to our knowledge. Okay, unless you’re Elon Musk

Alicia Granse
as of now, let’s clarify. As of now, you your data is supposed to be private, yeah.

Ben Casper
And abuses? Will they happen? I, I think they will. And they do that, but, but, but the law and the norm and the normal? Of course, no, no.

Alberto Villafan
As of, as of March 26 2025 you’re safe, relatively speaking, at 225 Yeah, 229 oh, that’s comforting. I’ve got another question from the audience. Are there any plans that you’ve seen, slash, heard of at workplaces to handle an ice raid that seems smart to you, or that you would advise people to replicate if they can at the workplace?

Alicia Granse
I don’t think I’ve seen any actual plans in a workplace. I have been at places just out in my personal life, and I’ve talked to people about, like, at restaurants, you know, they have plans. So I don’t think that I have, you know, one, one that is, you know, perfect. So I guess, no, that’s a really long way to say, No, I don’t know, yeah, I mean,

Ben Casper
I would say that that planning is important. And, you know, you know you don’t want to spend your whole life thinking about the worst, and you don’t want to spend your whole life in fear, but if you are potentially subject to, you know, ice Contact, and might be subject to immigration court or removal proceeds, you can act now. It’s a it’s very expensive once you’re in court already and you need someone to defend you in a, you know, basically an immigration not call it a trial, but a case, yeah. But you can, with some patience and less resources, have consultations with a private lawyer or one of these organizations that we talked about that don’t charge money or very little, and then come to a better understanding of what your situation is, how you might prepare, what documents you might want to have on hand, and and, and that’s both valuable to understand your rights, and it also is very valuable generally, because the more you know, the less anxiety and stress you feel about an otherwise uncertain future. It gives a little more understanding of how. How you would deal with things, and it’s scary, but it’s, it’s, it’s usually helps reduce fear rather than increase

Alberto Villafan
it. It’s necessary. It’s, it’s like a, like a fire drill, basically, or like a fire drill plan, having going ahead of time and actually understanding what you probably should be doing, right? Yeah, exactly.

Alicia Granse
I think, for people who are talking about, you know how to protect themselves and other people at work. You know, everybody wants to go through and think about, okay, what areas are private and which are public, and making a plan for you know, if somebody needs to be in a private area because of certain concerns, then you know, they they know, and they know where to go. Um, um, so things like that are good to think about

Alberto Villafan
when I have one more question. But before I ask, we’re about halfway through the broadcast. If you’re just now joining us, first of all, thank you for listening in. We’re all happy to have you here. My name is Alberto Villafan. If you’re just now joining us. We are here with the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota. Staff attorneys Ben and Alicia are answering our questions about immigration, workers rights and others rights. Of course, you were free to ask any questions that you want into our chat box. Of course, yeah, I’m gonna ask one more time both of you. Can you speak up just a little more? You can, like, I said, you want to be eating these microphones? Take a bite. Yeah, I don’t think they taste very good, though. I promise you, they taste delicious. I’ve been doing this for like, years of my life. I don’t eat the microphones. Don’t, actually. So we, earlier in the broadcast, you mentioned that, like, you know, in a public space, ice can just simply approach. Ice can enter public space. So is a restaurant a public space? Like, like, okay, so there play with me here. There are two aspects of a restaurant, you know, there’s the back of house, which generally no one is allowed to enter except staff. But there’s also the front of us. You know, we’re actually serving, serving patrons. Is that a public place where ICE agents can just walk in, like, go into the back as well.

Alicia Granse
They can walk into the front area where people are eating, but they can’t walk into the back. You can’t walk into the back. That’s considered a private well, I mean, that’s what we think of as a private place. You know, sometimes in the law, we’re always testing boundaries, but yes, the idea is that a place that’s not open to the public, like that is not a public space. So ice isn’t supposed to go into a locker room, a kitchen, other places that I mean, the best way to do it is to think, you know, like, and this isn’t necessarily legally binding, but put, put, put signs that say this is private. You can’t come in here, yeah, unless authorized personnel only,

Alberto Villafan
if your average Joe can walk in. That’s probably the extent of where an ice agent can go. Exactly Okay, on the same topic of where they may roam. My my older my younger sister. Sorry, I have two sisters. My younger sister was has been flooding me with a lot of questions on immigration, because I’m the news guy, apparently I know everything. I don’t. That’s why we’re having you guys here. But, um, she was asking me, you know, ICE agents like they’re they’re attire. Can they just stealthily enter facilities looking like your average Joe? Do they have to have like, insignias, logos, uniforms of any kind, or can they just look like Alicia or Ben or or me,

Alicia Granse
they dress in plain clothes all the time.

Alberto Villafan
That’s That’s normal. They don’t have to have, I mean, I’m not

Alicia Granse
going to say normal, but they don’t. They don’t need to be in a full uniform.

Ben Casper
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s pretty common for, for ICE agents going out into the public to make arrests of identified people who they’re going to approach with advanced knowledge of who they’re looking for to go in plain clothes. That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s a daily thing when people think about raids, you know, like a large scale RAID, which we haven’t seen many of those in many years, but, but, but they happen like at a, say, a turkey processing plant in Worthington or a factory. In those situations, you would expect to see ICE agents in uniforms, in part because it projects fear and intimidation and control exactly, but, but, but as a matter of law, do they have to be identified appropriately? No, and in fact, in fact, this is a long. Concern is that ICE does have a practice when it does go to make arrests in some circumstances, including at homes of wearing jackets that say police. And that’s misleading, and it’s deliberately misleading because it makes people think that they’re dealing with a criminal matter. They more likely to think, oh, it’s the police. They probably have a search warrant. They would, wouldn’t they? Isn’t that how they work? And so that’s a real problem, and that’s been something that continues. But when you see someone, just because they have a jacket says police does not mean that they’re actually your local police. They can sometimes be ICE agents.

Alberto Villafan
Anyone can wear a police jacket. Basically anyone can,

Alicia Granse
Yeah. I mean, you might run into some there are some sometimes criminal statutes about impersonating police officers, but I don’t know that wearing a police jacket would

Alberto Villafan
That’s a comforting thought. We have another audience question, and then I’ll have my own to ask. This member is wondering about ICE capacity in Minnesota. What do we know about ICE staff levels in Minnesota, or are they moving officers around regions like the Midwest?

Alicia Granse
I think one problem that there is is is a pretty opaque agency. So it’s not it’s not super clear, like we don’t know everything that they’re doing. You know, they’re not very open with with how many officers they are, how many arrests they’re doing, things like that. I don’t know. Ben, what, what’s your feeling? What’s, what are the vibes? I

Ben Casper
can give you two part answer. One, a lot, and the numbers not going down. I can tell you that. You know, I don’t know what the actual numbers are in a given place, the ICE operates in what they call district field offices. So St Paul happens to be the headquarters of the district, but it covers Minnesota, the Dakotas and Iowa and so people can be ICE agents assigned to this district, but in many different places, you know, there’s 10s of 1000s of ICE agents in the country. Yeah.

Alberto Villafan
So I guess here, here’s another question. I have a pre plan that I wanted you guys to clear up. You know, we were seeing more cases of ICE agents targeting green card and visa holders. You know, legal permanent residents. You know, What should these groups know to protect themselves for encounters with ice? I

Ben Casper
I mean, that’s, that’s a more complicated question, and it’s not easy. No, it’s not easy. And, I mean, Alicia, if I don’t know if you want to take a shot at first, you probably both have things to say about it.

Alicia Granse
Um, I mean, I think have a plan, like we’ve been talking about, always have a plan. And again, not to scare people, but just be smart and like Ben was talking about, you know, really, if it’s possible, do consultations. Know what your status is, and just be aware of what could happen in terms of protecting yourself against targeting like this. I don’t know. Ben, do you want to try to answer that?

Ben Casper
Yeah. I mean, I mean, I think the short answer to that, from my perspective, is that what happened was totally illegal, and his constitutional rights to free speech, Association and political expression were violated. They were violated in a retaliatory way, in a very specific way. And I think he’s got a good chance ultimately, of having those rights vindicated. And if he doesn’t, other people in his position probably will down the line, but we’re in a different space now than we were before January 20. In a lot of ways, ICE has been the same basic institution, same size, but the policies that they’re following since the Trump administration took over again, are different, and that what happened to Mahmoud Khalil is different and illegal, and I think deliberately illegal,

Alberto Villafan
So, but that. That isn’t there a second instance of a similar case with a Korean student, or, I guess there’s-

Ben Casper
There’s numerous cases, yeah, and they’re probably coming to Minnesota at some point. I think you’ll see that replicated around the country. And the question of when constitutional rights to free speech, how those balance out against the right of the government to seek deportation of people for certain reasons. That’s something that that is clear in some areas, not clear in other areas, but it is true that the government can’t retaliate against you because of your speech, and that’s happening.

Alberto Villafan
It’s a violation of first amendment, but going through right nonetheless you.

Ben Casper
I mean, some speech can get you in trouble if you do espouse terrorism. For example, there are immigration laws that say you could be deported for supporting certain kinds of terrorist organizations, sure, but and those are broad and they can be used in abusive ways. What I know about the Mahmoud Khalil case so far indicates to me, very extraordinary for them to go after a permanent residence, someone who has a green card in that way. And I think they did it in the way they did it to generate as much fear as they could, and they’re being pretty successful in that but, but what they did is unconstitutional in the country that I know, let’s,

Alberto Villafan
Let’s bring it back to Minnesota. We’re getting a bit broad, and that’s my bad. So are Minnesota businesses actually closing down because of detentions or deportations.

Alicia Granse
I mean, I know that we’ve heard from the Rochester business that they’re going to really struggle. That couple of weeks ago, some people were detained at, I believe it was a restaurant or a cafe, and I know that that business has said that it’s going to really struggle to remain open. Yeah?

Alberto Villafan
Nupa, I think was there. I think that’s right. So Rochester, did you? Yeah? It was fun. Yeah, good.

Alicia Granse
Good health care there, I hear.

Alberto Villafan
Sorry to interrupt. Keep going. Nupa.

Alicia Granse
Nupa, you know, we haven’t seen the big workplace raids. We haven’t seen the big factory or meat processing plant raids yet. Yeah, um, you know, we don’t have, and I think you know, bet to Ben’s point, some of the use of publicized cases to stoke fear is partly kind of a cover. They haven’t been able to get their numbers up yet. They want to do they want to. I mean, I think there The goal was to deport 11 million people, and in order to do that, they have to get their numbers up. And that just isn’t true yet. And again, that’s yet we are, you know, there is the possibility that many more resources will be thrown at this. They’ll staff up and, you know, be able to do more removals. You know, there’s also the possibility that they just start deciding, or they start to, they decide to start not respecting typical immigration processes, like we’ve been talking about immigration proceedings. You know, these are all things that are in regulation or in statute. And you know, if they really want to get their numbers up, maybe they just start ignoring that so, but as of right now, there haven’t been these huge numbers that are possible.

Alberto Villafan
We’re nearing the end of our broadcast, so we’re going to only answer a couple more questions before we have to turn off. So please get those in if you are just now joining us for the later end. First of all, thank you for joining us today. My name is Alberto. I’m here with Ben and Alicia of the American Civil Liberties Union. These two are wonderful staff attorneys, and they’re answering some of your questions about immigrants, workers rights and others rights. Please send your questions in. We want to hear more. We want to make sure you have the best information possible. Speaking of questions that we received from the audience, here’s one. Is your firm hearing about people being detained, incidentally, like if ICE comes to a workplace to detain someone who has a criminal conviction, but they then detain, let’s say, five others without criminal cases. Are either of you two aware of circumstances like that.

Ben Casper
Yeah, that’s happening. That happens. You know, the policies change from administration to administration. Under the Biden administration, they had general rules not to target people who just happened to be around if they. Didn’t have criminal convictions as a general matter, the current administration basically has a policy that you can arrest anyone who you might encounter in the course of looking for a specific person. So I think the chances of that happening now have gone up quite a bit, and it’s happening more now than it did a few months ago, although it did happen previously, too.

Alberto Villafan
Alicia, have you? Do you? Do you know of instance where this is happening? This is how normal is this? I guess. How often does that happen? I mean,

Alicia Granse
I think Ben answered it pretty well, and as a general rule, like we don’t get so many immigration law intakes, right? So that’s that’s probably a better question for somebody at like the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, but it definitely does happen.

Alberto Villafan
So circling back, since we’re reaching the end, I want to make sure that people know some of our key steps, key protections that they have. You know, what are some important things that you recommend our listeners take away from this broadcast? You know what? Some advice, some steps, some some protections that they for sure just need to know.

Alicia Granse
I’d say, know your rights. Go look at our website. Go look at our fact sheets. Educate yourselves. You can say no, you can say you have the right to say no, I don’t want to do this, or No, I don’t want to interact with you. So know that, and think about, you know, making a plan. Um, you know, if you are somebody who is, you know, open to immigration enforcement again, know your status. Know some phone numbers to call um and make a plan. Yeah.

Alberto Villafan
Ben, anything you would like to add?

Ben Casper
I mean, I think it’s hard to live with fear. And you know, most people who might be vulnerable to that live in families with others who probably aren’t, but the fear is just as real and impactful. And think learning your rights, but then also being active. Being politically active is an important thing that’s that’s the one way down the line that we’re going to be able to change the policies we’re seeing now. And so I think that people should not be this fear, but people should not be scared into silence. That’s not what this country is about.

Alberto Villafan
So how do you suggest workers, or workplace employees and employers remember all of these steps you know, in these protocols to take to protect themselves from ice? Could they make like a handbook, a little pamphlet? You know, what resources should they have on hand, if any?

Alicia Granse
Yeah, I mean, they could probably make a checklist. Um, I would frame it as these are our rights. Exert your rights. Um, you know, sometimes we we want to make sure that we’re not skirting the line into like they’ll try to maybe, you know, charge you with obstructing the legal process, or resistance or abetting. And as long as you frame it as you have the right to be here, you have the right to say this under the Constitution, that can make it easier to to not run afoul of that, so that that’s that’s maybe one way to think about, you know, posting your rights up in a workplace and having conversations,

Alberto Villafan
Having conversations. So would you recommend that even permanent residents, you know, even citizens, do you recommend that they carry around passports or other documents with them at all times in fear or preparation? Yeah? Or is that excessive?

Ben Casper
Yeah. I mean, you actually are supposed to carry your green card with you if you have one other people have statuses, you know, they might have a card that’s stapled into their passport. And do most people want to carry around their passport all the time and be vulnerable to losing that? No, I think making a copy of it is a good idea, and so having a copy identification documents on you is useful most of the time.

Alberto Villafan
So I have another audience question over here. What can American citizens do to protect their loved ones, slash coworkers, if they were present during an ice. Encounter, and what should they do if their loved ones were being detained? You know, if my lovely producer over here saw me getting detained, is there anything that she could do to help me, protect me? Anything at all?

Ben Casper
I think Alicia will have probably smarter answers on on this in terms of some of the law, but I do think one thing that we haven’t seen as potently used in immigration has been but not as much as in criminal policing. And I think it could make a real difference as as things evolve. People don’t like family separation. That turned a lot of people politically some years ago. That’s going to start again to a greater degree. And I think being able to document it, if you’re able to document what’s going on, and if you see abuses, and you’re able to document them and share them with the public, do it.

Alicia Granse
Yeah, I think that’s that’s a great something, something that you know, citizens can do. You know, you always get to choose what you’re going to do. There’s always concept. There are consequences to what you choose to do. Like you can record law enforcement, you can record ice. You are allowed to be on public spaces recording. You can’t get close enough to interfere with them physically, but you can definitely record. You know, it’s always about you have to make choices about how you’re going to keep yourself safe and how you’re going to keep your loved ones safe, you know, and certainly videoing, you know, calling lawyers, calling, calling the newspapers. I think that’s a good way to do it, you know, not getting in between law enforcement officers. That’s That’s probably a bad idea,

Alberto Villafan
yeah, yeah. But pulling out your phone, your camera, pulling out-

Alicia Granse
Your phone, pulling out your camera, not putting your body in between. You know that that just gets dangerous.

Ben Casper
So or having a camera at your house, I mean, a security system at your house that records Yes, happening at your house can also be valuable.

Alberto Villafan
Well, we’re nearing the end of our broadcast. I only have a couple more questions. But before I ask my closing is there anything that you guys want to add, anything that I haven’t been able to ask either of you that you want to make sure our audience knows, your audience knows?

Alicia Granse
Know your rights. Call us.

Alberto Villafan
Call us or and who are us? Who is us? The

Alicia Granse
ACLU of Minnesota, we’re fighting for you. And there’s a lot of organizations out there doing that too. Don’t let them scare you.

Alberto Villafan
Ben is there anything you would like to add?

Ben Casper
I think that is right. I mean, fear is the is the most potent tool.

Alberto Villafan
Fear is the mind killer, right?

Ben Casper
I think finding ways to be supported by other people, your family and others, and understanding your rights and having those consultations, that does go a long way not make it all go away, but it does go a long way to reducing it.

Alberto Villafan
So are there any ways that I can protect my data from ICU? You mentioned this like much earlier in the broadcast, but they don’t or ICE does not have direct access to my I nine forms, government audits, etc. Is there anything I can do to protect my own data make sure that they maybe can’t get access to it?

Alicia Granse
Well, if you’re talking about like your cell phone data, or like your email data or things like that. Certainly, you know, you there’s a lot of best practices, and I would point people to like our national ACLU website about data privacy. Um, you know, your settings on your phone will, kind of will, you know, you can, you can make sure that they’re not automatically tracking data on your browser, things like that. I’d also say, like, use a pin code on your phone rather than face ID or your fingerprint, yeah, um, because they can take your phone and just hold it up to your face, they can’t make you tell them your PIN code. So if, if they’re trying to look for information on your phone, and this is just a general thing for everybody, everybody should know that, um, you know, when there are services on the internet, you know. To kind of pull you your data off the internet, and you can call your legislators and ask them to tighten up privacy with third parties in terms of that data. But the federal level, we don’t have a lot of control over that right now.

Alberto Villafan
Not easy. Ben anything you would like to add?

Ben Casper
Just be cognizant that they look at social media, so that is something to be aware of. Not I’m not saying don’t use social media. People use social media. It’s how people live today, but, but it is something that, if it’s open public accounts, ICE does, does use that as a resource.

Alberto Villafan
Last question that I have written down for us, you know, what can my workplace do to protect our immigrant workers? Is there anything that workplace can do my being very general and vague, not my specific office, but you know what I’m saying?

Alicia Granse
Well, your workplace can make sure that they’re not over or pre complying with ice or with other law enforcement agencies. So make sure that if ICE agents are coming in to you your job, that they have the proper paperwork and the employer can say, I need to see a warrant. I need to talk to my lawyer. Is this a legal document, things like that?

Alberto Villafan
Can you define- can you define over compliant for me, real quick before, before we have to turn off the broadcast.

Alicia Granse
It just means, essentially, like doing what they want you to do, even though you don’t have a legal obligation to do it. So we talk about this a lot, like if a police officer says, Give me your phone, I want to look at it and you just do it. That’s over complying, right? They don’t. If they don’t have a search warrant, they don’t have a reason to search your phone, so don’t do that, or don’t go out of your way to, like, be nice to law enforcement or ice, you know, make sure that they have a legal basis for what they’re doing, right, right?

Alberto Villafan
All right. Okay, we’ve reached the end of our broadcast. Thank you so much Ben and Alicia for joining us today. I want to give one one more big thank you to both of you, to the ACLU of Minnesota for taking the time out of their day and answering all of our questions. Thank you, everyone who managed to join us for this hour long broadcast. We all hope you learn something, and can walk away with a little more than you knew yesterday. We’ll have a recap article and video of the event available for you all later to look up on our website, on our YouTube channel as well, and remember, you can stay up to date with the latest news about immigration and other topics impacting immigrant immigrant communities and communities of color of Minnesota at Sahan journal.com thank you guys so much. Hope you all have a wonderful day.

Alicia Granse
Thank you. Thanks. Alberto, thanks everyone. Bye.