Gregorio Perez Cruz v. William Barr
926 F.3d 1128 (2019)
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Rule of Law:
The categorical authority to detain occupants of a premises during the execution of a search warrant under Michigan v. Summers does not extend to a preexisting plan whose central purpose is to detain, interrogate, and arrest a large number of individuals without individualized reasonable suspicion.
Facts:
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received an anonymous tip that Micro Solutions Enterprises (MSE), a manufacturer, employed 200 to 300 undocumented immigrants.
- Nearly two years later, ICE obtained a search warrant for employment-related documents at the MSE factory and arrest warrants for eight specific employees.
- Internal ICE planning documents revealed that the agency's central purpose was not the search for documents, but to use the warrant 'in order to administratively arrest as many as 100 unauthorized workers,' with plans for buses and 200 detention beds.
- Approximately 100 armed ICE agents entered the factory, blocked all exits, and ordered all workers, including Gregorio Perez Cruz, to stop working and informed them that no one was permitted to leave.
- Agents separated the workers by gender and ordered the men to form two lines: one for those with work authorization and one for those without. Perez Cruz did not join either line.
- An agent frisked Perez Cruz, took his wallet, and handcuffed him.
- While he was handcuffed at the factory, and later at a detention facility, agents interrogated Perez Cruz, and he provided statements about his name, nationality, date of birth, and lack of lawful immigration status.
- Perez Cruz was one of 130 workers arrested for immigration violations during the raid.
Procedural Posture:
- The government initiated removal proceedings against Gregorio Perez Cruz in immigration court.
- Perez Cruz filed a motion before an Immigration Judge (IJ) to terminate the proceedings or, alternatively, to suppress evidence from the raid.
- The IJ granted the motion to terminate, finding that ICE violated its own regulations, which prejudiced Perez Cruz.
- The government appealed the IJ's decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).
- The BIA reversed the IJ's decision, holding that the detention was permissible under Michigan v. Summers and did not violate the Fourth Amendment or agency regulations.
- On remand, the IJ entered an order of removal against Perez Cruz.
- Perez Cruz appealed the removal order to the BIA, which dismissed his appeal.
- Perez Cruz then filed a petition for review of the BIA's decisions with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
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Issue:
Does the Fourth Amendment, as interpreted in Michigan v. Summers, permit law enforcement to carry out a preplanned mass detention and interrogation of workers during the execution of a search warrant when the central purpose of the operation is to arrest undocumented individuals rather than to conduct the search authorized by the warrant?
Opinions:
Majority - Berzon
No, the Fourth Amendment does not permit such a detention. A search warrant cannot be used as a pretext for a preplanned mass detention and arrest operation that lacks individualized suspicion. The court's reasoning is as follows: while subjective intent is usually irrelevant in probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis, purpose is critical for 'suspicionless intrusions' like the categorical detention authorized by Michigan v. Summers. The justification for a Summers detention—officer safety, preventing flight, and facilitating the search—disappears when the search is not the primary purpose of the officers' actions. Here, uncontroverted evidence from ICE's own planning documents showed the operation's central purpose was to 'target' and arrest undocumented workers, not to execute a document search. The scale of the operation and the agents' focus on detaining and interrogating hundreds of workers, rather than searching for records, confirmed that the search was a pretext. Therefore, the detention was not a valid Summers detention and, lacking individualized reasonable suspicion, it violated both the Fourth Amendment and federal regulation 8 C.F.R. § 287.8(b)(2).
Analysis:
This decision significantly curtails the government's ability to use a search warrant as a pretext for conducting large-scale, suspicionless immigration raids. By incorporating a purpose-based inquiry into the Summers doctrine, the court aligns these types of detentions with other 'suspicionless' searches where the government's true motive is determinative of constitutionality. This creates a higher barrier for law enforcement seeking to detain large groups of people without individualized suspicion, requiring them to demonstrate that the detention is genuinely incidental to a valid search, not the primary objective of the operation itself. The ruling sets a strong precedent against using warrants as a tool for 'fishing expeditions' targeting entire workforces.
