Can ICE agents pull you over? Jailing of Kansas immigrant raises question

Luis Diaz Inestroza — a native Honduran, a father, a Kansas City, Kansas, homeowner and small business owner who entered the United States illegally 13 years ago— was driving to work in July when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled him over in his truck.

His company’s name, “Diaz Repair and Remodeling,” was emblazoned across the doors.

Besides entering the United States when he was 15, Diaz Inestroza had done nothing wrong. He had no criminal history. There was no previous warrant for his arrest.

In fact, said Megan Galicia, Diaz Inestroza’s Kansas City attorney, when ICE agents first turned up outside of Diaz Inestroza’s home, they weren’t looking for Diaz Inestroza, who, in 2019, was featured in the Selena Gomez documentary “Living Undocumented.”

“They were looking for someone else,” Galicia said.

What happened next was legal. ICE ran Diaz Inestroza’s plates and pulled his name. They saw he had a history with ICE; he was in the U.S. illegally. That was enough. They obtained and printed a warrant.

The very next day — although Diaz Inestroza hadn’t sped, he hadn’t run a red light, he hadn’t failed to come to a full stop — ICE officers stopped him in his truck and arrested him. Last week, having been turned down for release on bond, Diaz Inestroza chose to self-deport, leaving his pregnant fiancée and three children (two of whom are U.S. citizens) behind.

Diaz Inestroza’s is a real-life scenario that raises a real question: Do ICE officers have the authority to make traffic stops? The answer, immigration attorneys and advocates say, is both simple ... and not.

Can ICE stop you for running a red light

Technically, ICE and other federal agents do not have statutory authority to make stops for traffic or vehicle violations — such as running a red light, or having expired tags, low tire pressure, excessively tinted windows, or not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign. That authority, in general, lies with state and local police departments.

But that doesn’t mean that ICE agents still can’t stop motorists.

If they have a warrant, as occurred with Diaz Inestroza, they can certainly pull someone over.

“They’re law enforcement officers,” Galicia, Diaz Inestroza’s attorney said. “They have the power to stop people.”

No warrant, but ‘reasonable suspicion’

But even without a warrant, ICE officers can still stop a vehicle if they have “reasonable suspicion” that the driver or passengers are in the U.S. illegally. Although an individual’s race or ethnicity can be one factor in creating “reasonable suspicion,” it cannot be the only factor.

The U.S. Supreme Court made this ruling nearly 50 years ago in the 1975 case, United States v. Brignoni-Ponce. In that case, border patrol agents stopped Felix Humberto Brignoni-Ponce in his car with other passengers based soley on the fact that he appeared to be of Mexican descent.

The Supreme Court ruled that the border agents had no probable cause for the stop other than Brignoni-Ponce’s ethnicity and, as such, further violated Brignoni-Ponce’s Fourth Amendment gaurantee against illegal search and seizure.

But if the agents, however, know a driver is in the country illegally, they do have the authority to make a stop and, perhaps, a warrantless arrest — although immigration advocates fear that ICE agents have begun to interpret that authority too broadly and misuse it.

“The process,” said Kansas City immigration attorney Michael Sharma-Crawford, “isn’t being followed.”

Immigration law

The prime law at play, Sharma-Crawford said, is the Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 287(a), also written as Title 8 of U.S. Code 1357 (a) The law spells out the powers of immigration officers without a warrant.

Section (a)(1) says an officer “shall have power without a warrant to interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or to remain in the United States.”

Section (a)(2) goes on to say that immigration officers also have the “power without a warrant to arrest any alien” who they see illegally “entering or attempting to enter the United States.” That section of law generally relates to indviduals viewed crossing illegally at U.S. borders.

The clause that Sharma-Crawford and others fear immigration officers are misusing is the very next one that says that agents can also arrest any alien in the U.S. if an officer has “reason to believe” that an individual so arrested ”is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest.”

Sharma-Crawford’s said that agents have begun making such arrests, claiming that individuals are threats for escape, although that is often not the case. After ICE has an individual’s name, their address, their license plate number, Sharma-Crawford argues, “how is he going to escape?”

The Castañon Nava case

In 2018, the accusation that Homeland Security agents had been missuing the law led to a class action lawsuit in Chicago federal court, Margarito Castañon Nava v. Department of Homeland Security.

The case centers on a number of plaintiffs including Castañon Nava, who is Hispanic and had been living in Chicago for 17 years when he was stopped in his work truck.

Castañon Nava was driving with other passengers when ICE agents in vests marked “Police” pulled him over, asked Castañon Nava and the others for identification, fingerprinted them, took their photographs, handcuffed and arrested them.

Another plaintiff was driving in his van with coworkers when he was also stopped, ostensibly for low tire pressure, and also subsequenlty taken into custody by ICE agents.

The case, in 2022, ultimately led to a decision and settlement agreement in which ICE agents can’t just have a vague “reason to believe” that individual is potentially going to escape. They instead are legally required to document the specific facts establishing that believe, while also articulating the facts that leave them to believe that an individual inside a vehicle is in the country illegally.

The three-year Castañon Nava settlement agreement, however, expired in May. Immigration advocates are now waiting for a decision by the court as to whether the agreement will be extended for an additional three years.

ICE and local police making stops together

Some ICE officers, meanwhile, have arrested people at their cars in league with local or state police.

In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court in Whren v. United States, ruled unanimously that state and local police have the authority to make what are known as “pretextual traffic stops.”

“They held that if a police officer witnesses a traffic violation, they can go ahead and conduct a traffic stop, pull someone over, even if that stop is ‘pretexual’” — meaning the real motivation was to investigate other potential crimes.” said Kenyu Ching, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas.

“Obviously, pretextual stops are a really powerful took that allow cops to stop somebody on what might be a technicality, when the real reason they wanted to stop that person is something completely different.”

ICE officers, however, are not authorized to make pretextual stops. Because ICE officers cannot make stops for traffic violations and because state and local police are, typically, not allowed to make immigration arrests, the separate law enforcement agencies have been working together in some states to make immigration arrests.

ICE, in May, for example, noted that a weeklong cooperative agreement between state police and federal officers resulted in the arrests of 196 “criminal illegal aliens,” some which they claimed had “significant criminal histories and outstanding final orders of removal.”

“This enforcement effort underscores ICE’s unwavering commitment to public safety and the rule of law,” Brian Acuna, the field office director for Enforcement and Removal Operations at New Orleans Field Office, said in a release at the time. “Our officers are focused on identifying and removing individuals who pose a threat to the safety and security of Tennessee residents. “During the operation, I witnessed the men and women of the Tennessee Highway Patrol carry out significant public safety efforts. The New Orleans Field Office is grateful for their support.”

Immigrants in the U.S. illegally have rights

Concerns over the treatment of immigrants at traffic stops in Kansas City to President Donald Trump’s first administration when, in July 2019, Kansas City police officers smashed the window of Florencio MIllan’s car, and forcibly removed him in front of his children, while the 32-minute encounter was live-streamed by his partner.

Similar encounters, recorded on video, have occurred in other cities throughout 2025.

Trinidad Raj Molina, a board member with Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation (AIRR) in Kansas City, emphasized that individuals without legal status in the country still have rights.

In a written statement, the organization noted, the the Fifth Amendment gives people the right to remain silent, inluding when being stopped or question or detained by ICE officers. The Fourth Amendment guarantees the right to refuse search or entry to property without a valid and signed judicial warrant.

“If there is not probable cause of arrest, you can question it,” Molina said of traffic stops. “You can ask, ‘Am I free to go?’ Video the whole interaction.”