Fourth Amendment

Judge Blocks Warrantless ICE Construction Site Raids After Agents in Alabama Arrested a U.S. Citizen 3 Times

Being on a construction site "does not open the floodgates to warrantless government intrusion," a federal judge ruled in a lawsuit filed by a construction worker who has been detained three times by ICE.

C.J. Ciaramella | 9.21.2026 3:24 PM

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(Institute for Justice)

A federal judge has temporarily blocked tactics used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to conduct warrantless immigration raids on construction sites in southern Alabama in response to a lawsuit filed by a Latino construction worker who has been detained three times, despite being a U.S. citizen.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Beaverstock issued a temporary stay Monday against several DHS policies being challenged by Leo Garcia Venegas, the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed last October by the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm. The suit seeks to stop "dragnet raids" that it alleges target Latino construction workers without reasonable suspicion and continue detaining them even after they offer evidence of citizenship, violating the Fourth Amendment.

Venegas, an Alabama construction worker and U.S. citizen, has been detained and handcuffed three times by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, even though he had a valid REAL ID on all three occasions. In two of those instances, masked immigration officers entered private construction sites without a warrant and allegedly began detaining workers based only on their apparent ethnicity. Venegas' third detention occurred after his lawsuit was filed.

"For the first time in a long time, I will be able to go to work without worrying that I will be arrested for no reason," Venegas said in an Institute for Justice press release following the court order. "Americans cannot be stopped and held by law enforcement when they are doing nothing wrong."

Although the case is limited in scope to several counties in southern Alabama, it........

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