Regardless of your immigration status, you accept guaranteed rights under the Constitution. Learn more hither nigh your rights as an immigrant, and how to limited them.

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Woman and child in an immigration rally.

Law enforcement asks about my immigration status

How to reduce risk to yourself

  • Stay calm. Don't run, argue, resist, or obstruct the officer, even if you believe your rights are being violated. Keep your hands where police tin run into them.
  • Don't lie about your status or provide false documents.

Your rights

  • You have the correct to remain silent and do not have to discuss your immigration or citizenship status with police, immigration agents, or other officials. Anything yous tell an officer tin can later exist used confronting y'all in immigration court.
  • If you are not a U.Due south. citizen and an immigration agent requests your immigration papers, y'all must show them if you lot have them with yous.
  • If an immigration agent asks if they can search y'all, you lot have the right to say no. Agents practise not have the right to search you or your belongings without your consent or likely cause.
  • If you're over 18, comport your papers with you at all times. If you lot don't have them, tell the officeholder that you want to remain silent, or that you lot want to consult a lawyer earlier answering any questions.

What to do in such an encounter

  • In some states, you must provide your proper noun to law enforcement if you are stopped and told to place yourself. But even if you give your name, you don't have to respond other questions.
  • If y'all are driving and are pulled over, the officer tin crave you to show your license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance, but you lot don't accept to respond questions about your immigration status.
  • Customs officers tin can ask about your clearing status when entering or leaving the state. If you are a lawful permanent resident (LPR) who has maintained your status, you only accept to answer questions establishing your identity and permanent residency. Refusal to answer other questions volition probable cause delay, merely officials may non deny you entry into the United States for failure to answer other questions. If yous are a non-citizen visa holder, you may be denied entry into the U.S. if you refuse to respond officers' questions.

Boosted resources

  • If yous demand more information, contact your local ACLU chapter.
  • National Immigration Law Center: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Immigration Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Center
  • American Immigration Lawyers Association
  • ACLU VIDEO: What to practice if stopped past police or Water ice

In other languages

  • (Standard arabic) العَرَبِيَّة‎
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  • (Urdu) اُردُو‎
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I've been stopped by police or Ice

How to reduce chance to yourself

  • Stay calm and do not resist or obstruct the agents or officers.
  • Practice not lie or give imitation documents.
  • Prepare yourself and your family in case you are arrested. Memorize the phone numbers of your family and your lawyer. Make emergency plans if you lot take children or have medication.

Your rights

  • You take the right to remain silent. If yous wish to exercise that correct, say so out loud. (In some states, you lot may be required to provide your proper noun if asked to identify yourself.)
  • Y'all do not have to consent to a search of yourself or your belongings, but law may pat down your wearable if they suspect a weapon.
  • If you are arrested past law, you have the right to a government-appointed lawyer.
  • If you are detained past Water ice, you have the right to consult with a lawyer, just the regime is not required to provide one for yous. You can ask for a listing of gratis or low-cost alternatives.
  • You do non accept to answer questions about where yous were born, whether you are a U.S. citizen, or how y'all entered the land. (Dissever rules apply at international borders and airports, and for individuals on certain nonimmigrant visas, including tourists and business travelers.)

What to do if you are arrested or detained

  • Say you lot wish to remain silent and ask for a lawyer immediately. Don't give whatsoever explanations or excuses. Don't say annihilation, sign annihilation, or make any decisions without a lawyer.
  • If you have been arrested by law, you accept the right to brand a local telephone call. The law cannot heed if you call a lawyer.
  • If you accept been detained past Water ice, you have the right to contact your consulate or take an officer inform the consulate of your detention.
  • Remember your clearing number ("A" number) and give it to your family unit. It will assistance family members locate you.
  • Keep a copy of your clearing documents with someone y'all trust.
  • If you are a non-citizen: Ask your lawyer about the effect of a criminal confidence or plea on your clearing status. Don't discuss your clearing status with anyone but your lawyer. While yous are in jail, an immigration agent may visit you. Do not answer questions or sign annihilation earlier talking to a lawyer. Read all papers fully. If you do not understand or cannot read the papers, tell the officer you need an interpreter.

If you believe your rights were violated

  • Write down everything you remember, including officers' badges and patrol auto numbers, which agency the officers were from, and any other details. Get contact information for witnesses.
  • If you're injured, seek medical attention immediately and take photographs of your injuries.
  • File a written complaint with the bureau's internal affairs division or civilian complaint board. In most cases, yous tin file a complaint anonymously if you wish.

Additional resources

  • If you demand more than data, contact your local ACLU affiliate.
  • National Clearing Constabulary Center: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Clearing Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Center
  • American Clearing Lawyers Association
  • ACLU VIDEO: What to do if stopped by police or ICE

In other languages

  • (Arabic) العَرَبِيَّة‎‎
  • فارسی (Farsi)
  • Español (Spanish)
  • (Urdu) اُردُو‎

Police or ICE are at my home

How to reduce adventure to yourself

  • Stay calm and keep the door airtight. Opening the door does non give them permission to come inside, but it is safer to speak to Ice through the door.

Your rights

  • You have the right to remain silent, even if officer has a warrant.
  • Yous practice non take to let constabulary or immigration agents into your home unless they have certain kinds of warrants.
  • If police force have an arrest warrant, they are legally immune to enter the domicile of the person on the warrant if they believe that person is inside. But a warrant of removal/deportation (Form I-205) does non permit officers to enter a home without consent.

What to exercise when the constabulary or ICE go far

  • Ask if they are clearing agents and what they are there for.
  • Ask the agent or officer to show you a badge or identification through the window or peephole.
  • Ask if they take a warrant signed by a judge. If they say they practise, ask them to slide it under the door or hold it upwards to a window and then you lot can audit information technology.
  • Don't lie or produce any faux documents. Don't sign anything without speaking with a lawyer beginning.
  • Practise not open your door unless ICE shows y'all a judicial search or arrest warrant naming a person in your residence and/or areas to be searched at your address. If they don't produce a warrant, continue the door closed. Country: "I practice not consent to your entry."
  • If agents force their mode in, do not resist. If you wish to exercise your rights, state: "I do not consent to your entry or to your search of these premises. I am exercising my right to remain silent. I wish to speak with a lawyer as shortly as possible."
  • If you are on probation with a search condition, law enforcement is allowed to enter your home.

Additional resources

  • If you need more information, contact your local ACLU affiliate.
  • National Immigration Constabulary Center: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Immigration Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Center
  • American Immigration Lawyers Clan

I need a lawyer

Your rights

  • If yous are arrested by the constabulary, you have the correct to a government-appointed lawyer, and should ask for one immediately.
  • If arrested, yous have the right to a private telephone telephone call within a reasonable time of your arrest, and police may not listen to the call if information technology is made to a lawyer.
  • If you are detained past Ice or Border Patrol, you accept the right to rent a lawyer, but the government does not take to provide 1 for you. Ask for a list of free or low-cost alternatives.
  • If yous are detained, you have the correct to telephone call a lawyer or your family, and you have the right to be visited past a lawyer in detention. Yous have the correct to accept your attorney with y'all at any hearing before an clearing gauge.

Boosted resource

  • If you lot need more than information, contact your local ACLU affiliate.
  • Here is a list of contact information for legal organizations that aid immigrants.

I've been detained near the border by Border Patrol

How to reduce hazard to yourself

  • Stay at-home when interacting with immigration officials. Practise not lie or provide false documents.
  • Never flee from an immigration checkpoint.

Your rights

  • You take the correct to remain silent. You can as well tell the amanuensis that you'll merely answer questions in the presence of an attorney, no affair your citizenship or immigration status.
  • Yous do not have to answer questions about your immigration condition. A express exception exists for people who have permission to exist in the U.South. for a specific reason and for a limited amount of time (a "nonimmigrant" on a visa, for example). These individuals are required to provide data about their immigration status if asked.
  • Generally, a Border Patrol agent cannot detain you unless they have "reasonable suspicion"  that you are committing or committed a violation of immigration police force or federal law.
  • An immigration officeholder cannot arrest you without "likely crusade." That means the agent must have facts about you that brand it probable that you lot are committing, or committed, a violation of immigration constabulary or federal law.
  • At immigration checkpoints, agents practise not need whatsoever suspicion to end yous and enquire you questions, but their questions should be brief and related to verifying clearing condition. They tin can also visually inspect your vehicle.

What to expect

  • People who have entered the U.Southward. without inspection past an immigration official may be subject to expedited removal from the U.S. based on sure criteria. If you are told that y'all are bailiwick to expedited removal, ask for the stated reason. Also, if you fear persecution if returned to your country of origin, you should immediately inform the agents of your fright.
  • At border crossings, federal government do not need a warrant or fifty-fifty suspicion of wrongdoing to justify conducting what courts accept called a "routine search," such every bit searching luggage or a vehicle.
  • If an agent asks you lot for documents, what you demand to provide differs depending on your immigration condition. U.S. citizens practise not accept to conduct proof of citizenship if they are in the U.Southward. If yous have valid immigration documents and are over the historic period of 18, the constabulary requires that you to carry those documents with y'all. If you are asked by an immigration agent to produce them, show them to the agent. If yous are an immigrant without documents, y'all can reject the officer'southward request, although an agent may then ask you more questions.

Additional resources

  • If yous need more information, contact your local ACLU chapter.
  • National Immigration Constabulary Eye: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Immigration Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Centre
  • American Immigration Lawyers Association

I was stopped by police, Ice, or Border Patrol while in transit

How to reduce risk to yourself

  • Stay at-home. Don't run, fence, or obstruct the officer or agent. Keep your hands raised where they can run into them.
  • If you lot are in a machine, pull over in a safe place as quickly as possible. Plough off the engine, turn on the internal light, open the window function fashion and place your hands on the wheel. Upon asking, show police your commuter's license, registration, and proof of insurance.
  • If you are not a U.Southward. citizen and an immigration amanuensis requests your papers, you must show them if you take them with y'all. If y'all are over 18, conduct your immigration documents with you lot at all times. If you practise not have immigration papers, say you want to remain silent.

Your rights
In a car:

  • Drivers and passengers have the right to remain silent. If y'all are a passenger, you can inquire if you are free to go out. If the officer says yes, calmly leave.
  • If an officeholder or immigration agent asks to look within your car, you tin refuse to consent to the search. Merely if police generally believe that your car contains evidence of a crime, your car tin can exist searched without your consent.
  • In addition to police, Border Patrol conduct "roving patrols" effectually the interior of the U.Due south., pulling over motorists. Border Patrol must have reasonable suspicion that the driver or passengers in the motorcar committed an clearing violation or a federal crime.
  • Whatsoever arrest or prolonged end by Edge Patrol requires probable crusade. You may ask the agents about the basis for probable cause, and they should tell you. In this situation, both the driver and any passengers have the correct to remain silent and not answer questions about their clearing status.

On an airplane:

  • A airplane pilot may refuse to fly a rider if he or she reasonably believes that the rider is a threat to flight safety. A pilot may non, nonetheless, question you lot or refuse to permit y'all on a flying considering of bias based on your religion, race, national origin, gender, ethnicity, or political behavior.
  • If yous believe you are mistakenly on a "no-fly" list, you should review our guidance on No-Fly lists here.

On buses and trains:

  • Border Patrol agents may board buses and trains in the 100-mile border region either at the station or while the bus is on its journey. More than i officer normally boards the motorcoach, and they will ask passengers questions about their clearing status, enquire passengers to show them immigration documents, or both.
  • These questions should exist brief and related to verifying one'south lawful presence in the U.S. You lot are not required to answer and can simply say you practice non wish to practise and so. As e'er, you lot have the correct to remain silent.

If you lot believe your rights were violated

  • Write down everything you remember, including officers' badges and patrol auto numbers, which agency the officers were from, and whatever other details. Get contact information from witnesses.
  • If you're injured, seek medical attending immediately and accept photographs of your injuries.
  • File a written complaint with the agency's internal affairs division or civilian complaint board. In nigh cases, you tin file a complaint anonymously.

Additional resource

  • If you lot need more information, contact your local ACLU affiliate.
  • National Immigration Law Center: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Immigration Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Middle
  • American Immigration Lawyers Association

I am detained while my clearing case is underway

I've been arrested and need to claiming a displacement order

Your rights

  • You have the right to a hearing to claiming a deportation order, unless you waive your right to a hearing, sign something called a "Stipulated Removal Order," or have "voluntary departure."
  • Y'all have the right to an attorney, simply the government does not take to provide one for you. Ask for a list of free or low-cost alternatives. If yous have no lawyer, ask the court to allow you time to observe one.

What to do if yous are arrested

  • If you are told that you practice not have the correct to see an immigration approximate, you lot should speak with a lawyer immediately. There are some cases in which a person might not take a correct to meet an immigration gauge. Only fifty-fifty if y'all are told that is your situation, you should inquire to speak to a lawyer immediately because Immigration officers will non always know or tell you well-nigh exceptions might apply to you.
  • If you fear persecution or torture in your home state, tell an officer and contact a lawyer immediately. You have additional rights if you have this fear.

Additional resources

  • If you need more information, contact your local ACLU chapter.
  • National Immigration Police Middle: Know Your Rights
  • A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Immigration Raids
  • Immigrant Legal Resource Centre
  • American Immigration Lawyers Clan