Opinion ID: 687091
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fourth and Fifth Amendment Violations

Text: 8 The exclusionary rule ordinarily does not apply in deportation hearings. INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1042-50 (1984). Therefore, even if Lopez established that border patrol officers stopped her without probable cause to believe that she was an alien in the United States illegally, the immigration judge was not required to suppress the I-213 which established her deportability. 9 Lopez maintains that her stop and arrest constituted such egregious violations of the Fourth Amendment that the I-213 should have been suppressed despite the general rule that suppression is an inappropriate remedy in a deportation hearing. See id. at 1050-51 (noting possibility of suppression when egregious violations ... transgress notions of fundamental fairness and undermine the probative value of the evidence obtained); Orgorhaghe v. INS, 38 F.3d 488, ---- (9th Cir.1994) (seizure based on individual's Nigerian-sounding name is an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment warranting suppression); Gonzalez-Rivera v. INS, 22 F.3d 1441, 1444-45 (9th Cir.1994) (detention based solely on Hispanic appearance is an egregious violation). Lopez also contends that her statements to Castillo were involuntarily and obtained in violation of her Fifth Amendment rights. 10 Lopez has failed to produce even a scintilla of evidence supporting her contentions. We do not agree with her argument that, despite this failure, the immigration judge should have required the INS to establish the legality of her detention and arrest and the voluntariness of her statements. Requiring the INS to establish the circumstances surrounding a detention and arrest simply because an alien claims without explanation that the INS obtained its evidence unconstitutionally would contravene the basis for not applying the exclusionary rule in civil deportation hearings. The Supreme Court recognized in Lopez-Mendoza that immigration officers apprehend over one million deportable aliens each year and, [a]lthough the investigatory burden does not justify the commission of constitutional violations, requiring them to compile elaborate, contemporaneous, written reports detailing the circumstances of every arrest would result in a severe burden. 468 U.S. at 1049. 11 In light of this potentially crippling burden, an alien is required to make a prima facie showing of an egregious violation of the Constitution before the burden shifts to the INS to show that it obtained its evidence lawfully. See Gonzalez-Rivera, 22 F.3d at 1444-45. Although the alien's burden at this stage is not an onerous one, we have held that petitioners fell short of the required showing when they alleged claims more substantiated than Lopez's. For example, the petitioner in Gonzalez-Rivera submitted a written motion to suppress alleging that border patrol officers stopped him and his father solely because of their Hispanic appearance and that such a stop constituted an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 1443. Nevertheless, we held that the INS was not required to justify the petitioner's arrest because the petitioner's motion to suppress did not include an affidavit alleging illegal and egregious conduct and possibly because he did not produce his father's testimony. 1 Id. at 1445. 12 In this case, Lopez did not submit a written motion to suppress or an affidavit supporting her objection to the I-213, nor did she testify as to any theory of illegality. She did not allege that the arresting officers committed egregious constitutional violations. She did not even state the basis for her claim that she was detained and arrested unlawfully. She simply stated through her attorney that her stop and arrest were unconstitutional. Even in her petition for review, she fails to articulate any basis for believing that she was detained and arrested unlawfully. Under these circumstances, the BIA was correct to conclude that the immigration judge properly denied Lopez's motion to suppress and to terminate proceedings.