Good Reason to Believe : Widespread Constitutional Violations in the Course of Immigration Enforcement and the Case for Revisiting Lopez-Mendoza

In 1984 the Supreme Court held in INS v. Lopez-Mendoza that the exclusionary rule did not ordinarily apply to respondents in immigration proceedings. However, the Court suggested that its opinion about the applicability of the exclusionary rule might change if constitutional violations by immigration officers became a widespread problem. First, this article proposes that constitutional violations by immigration officers have become both geographically and institutionally widespread in the years since Lopez-Mendoza. Second, this article argues that immigration law and the practice of immigration enforcement have changed fundamentally in the twenty-four years since Lopez-Mendoza was decided, undermining the assumptions on which the majority in 1984 based its arguments against the use of the exclusionary rule. The article therefore concludes that, in the modern context, remaining faithful to Lopez-Mendoza requires the reintroduction of the exclusionary rule in immigration proceedings