{"id":12828,"date":"2026-07-21T19:06:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12828"},"modified":"2026-07-21T19:06:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:06:06","slug":"the-supreme-court-is-helping-ice-agents-get-away-with-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12828","title":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court Is Helping ICE Agents Get Away With Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"<script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n\r\n<br><div id=\"article-content\">\n            \n\n\n\n\n<p><em>This article is part of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/cafe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">TPM Cafe,<\/a>\u00a0TPM\u2019s home for opinion and news analysis.<\/em>\u00a0<em>It was originally published at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ballsandstrikes.org\/law-politics\/supreme-court-ice-bivens\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Balls and Strikes<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a homebuilder in Houston, woke up before sunrise, ate breakfast prepared by his wife, and drove his construction crew to work. Around 6:50 AM, federal immigration agents surrounded Salgado Araujo\u2019s van and shot him through an open window. Struck in the stomach, he\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/opinion\/ice-death-lorenzo-salgado-araujo-houston-mohammad-nazeer-paktiawal-20260709.html\" target=\"_blank\">died<\/a>\u00a0at a hospital a few hours later.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Department of Homeland Security put out a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DHSgov\/status\/2074626271716216846\" target=\"_blank\">statement<\/a>\u00a0that evening which claimed that immigration officers stopped Salgado Araujo\u2019s van as part of a \u201ctargeted\u201d operation, and that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot him \u201cin self-defense\u201d after he \u201cweaponized his vehicle\u201d in an attempt to run agents over. Later, DHS admitted that Salgado Araujo was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/07\/09\/us\/witnesses-houston-ice-shooting.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wVA.Mg1C.lG6vp7BL6ifM&amp;smid=nytcore-ios-share\" target=\"_blank\">not the target<\/a>\u00a0of an investigation. And\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/post\/212915\/video-footage-ice-shooting-houston-texas-salgado-araujo\" target=\"_blank\">video evidence<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonpublicmedia.org\/articles\/news\/politics\/immigration\/2026\/07\/10\/556770\/ice-shooting-houston-lorenzo-salgado-araujo-passengers-dispute-dhs-account\/\" target=\"_blank\">witness<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/212900\/texas-ice-killing-darkens-rep-says-witnesses-pressured-self-deport\" target=\"_blank\">reports<\/a>\u00a0revealed that Salgado Araujo did not aim his vehicle at ICE agents, who shot him from the passenger side of the van.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just a few days later, the same deadly scenario played out all over again. On July 13, around 7 AM, Johan Sebasti\u00e1n Dur\u00e1n Guerrero left his apartment in Biddeford, Maine, to go to work. Mere feet from the front door, federal immigration agents fired\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/2026\/07\/14\/the-latest-on-the-biddeford-ice-shooting\/\" target=\"_blank\">at least four shots<\/a>\u00a0into his car. Nearby, his 3-year-old daughter looked on, in her Bluey pajamas, and cried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, the Trump administration\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/2026\/07\/14\/the-latest-on-the-biddeford-ice-shooting\/\" target=\"_blank\">initially<\/a>\u00a0claimed that Guerrero was the \u201ctarget\u201d of an arrest warrant, and that officers shot him after he \u201cweaponized\u201d his car. Again, the administration later admitted that Guerrero was\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/bostonglobe.com\/2026\/07\/15\/metro\/biddeford-maine-shooting-ice-tactics-accountability\/\" target=\"_blank\">not the target<\/a>\u00a0of an investigation. An ICE spokesperson eventually abandoned the self-defense claim, too, saying only that agents shot Guerrero out of an amorphous concern for \u201cpublic safety.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The American Civil Liberties Union published a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/publications\/agents-of-chaos-and-cruelty-how-the-trump-administrations-national-deportation-policing-force-has-attacked-american-communities\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday that examined more than 1,200 incidents of immigration enforcement across eight states that occurred during President Donald Trump\u2019s first year back in the White House. The report concluded that in 432 of those incidents\u2014representing more than one in three of the reviewed enforcement actions in 2025\u2014agents used or threatened force, used intimidation tactics, or retaliated against observers. The ACLU also identified 130 instances in which agents brandished weapons and 16 incidents in which agents used lethal force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report stresses that the misconduct of immigration agents is not the result of \u201ca few bad apples.\u201d Rather, the fault lies with \u201ca culture of abuse\u201d encouraged by the Trump administration, and \u201ca broken system of accountability.\u201d Basically, when immigration agents are free to break the law without personal consequence, there are deadly consequences for everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<!-- \/wp:post-content -->\n\n<!-- wp:image -->\n<div class=\"GalleryImageWrapper\"><h2 class=\"GalleryImageWrapper__Title\"\/><figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"the-supreme-court-is-helping-ice-agents-get-away-with-murder-4\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ballsandstrikes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2286376762-2400x1350.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">(Ryan Caron King\/Connecticut Public via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n<!-- \/wp:image -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>One might assume that the legal system would allow people to do something when the government acts illegally. And for a time, it did: Back in 1971, the Supreme Court ruled that people may generally sue federal agents, including immigration officers, who violate their constitutional rights, even if there\u2019s no law explicitly authorizing a remedy. The majority in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/403\/388\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents<\/em><\/a>\u00a0reasoned that the Constitution\u2019s guarantees would be meaningless if people couldn\u2019t seek redress when the government infringed their rights, so the Constitution must implicitly empower people to sue for relief.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>That rationale made too much sense for the conservative legal movement, which has spent the past decade putting up significant roadblocks on the path that\u00a0<em>Bivens<\/em>\u00a0paved toward accountability. In 2017, for instance, the Court blocked a group of people from suing prison officials and high-ranking Department of Justice officials after the government detained them for months in horrid conditions on suspicion of terrorism but without actual charges. The majority in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/16pdf\/15-1358_6khn.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Ziglar v. Abbassi<\/em><\/a>\u00a0noted that the Court hadn\u2019t recognized an implied right to sue under\u00a0<em>Bivens<\/em>\u00a0\u201cfor the past 30 years,\u201d and said that doing so \u201cis now a disfavored judicial activity.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>In 2020, the Court decided\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/19pdf\/17-1678_m6io.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Hernandez v. Mesa<\/em><\/a>, a case about a Customs and Border Patrol agent on the U.S. side of the border who shot and killed a 15-year-old boy on the Mexico side of the border. In\u00a0<em>Hernandez<\/em>, the Court blocked the boy\u2019s grieving parents from suing the agent. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that the lawsuit was \u201cunlike any previously recognized\u00a0<em>Bivens<\/em>\u00a0claim\u201d because a cross-border shooting claim had \u201cforeign relations and national security implications,\u201d and the Court should not expand\u00a0<em>Bivens<\/em>\u00a0to a \u201cnew context.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Most recently, in 2022, the Court blocked a man from suing a Border Patrol agent who threw him against a vehicle and then onto the ground, and later targeted him with a tax audit. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/21pdf\/21-147_g31h.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Egbert v. Boule<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that this, too, was \u201ca new context.\u201d Worse still, Thomas wrote that judges should dismiss a\u00a0<em>Bivens<\/em>\u00a0claim if there is \u201c<em>any<\/em>\u00a0rational reason (even one)\u201d to think that Congress\u2014and not the Court\u2014should decide whether there should be a remedy for a constitutional rights violation. To clear up any doubt, Thomas said the result of such an inquiry would be dismissal \u201cin most every case.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>In each of these cases, the Supreme Court\u2019s invocations of faux judicial modesty deprived people of legal means to vindicate their rights against the government. Congress could override the Court by passing a law to authorize\u00a0<em>Bivens<\/em>-style actions, but lawmakers have\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/house-bill\/6091\" target=\"_blank\">yet to act<\/a>\u00a0on such legislation. And without accountability mechanisms, the ACLU\u2019s report on immigration enforcement notes, abuse is \u201cmore likely to recur.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Right now, immigration agents are terrorizing people and getting off scot-free. This is an impunity problem that the Supreme Court helped create. But a sufficiently motivated Congress could address it, in part by literally making immigration agents pay for what they\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->          <\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n    window.fbAsyncInit = function() {\n      FB.init({\n        appId: \"101800829865996\",\n        xfbml: true,\n        version: ' v2.6'\n      });\n      window.fbAsyncInit.__didInit = true;\n    };\n    (function(d, s, id) {\n      var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n      if (d.getElementById(id)) {\n        return;\n      }\n      js = d.createElement(s);\n      js.id = id;\n      js.src = \"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\";\n      fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n    }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n  <\/script>\r\n<br><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article is part of\u00a0TPM Cafe,\u00a0TPM\u2019s home for opinion and news analysis.\u00a0It was originally published at\u00a0Balls and Strikes. On July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a homebuilder in Houston, woke up before sunrise, ate breakfast prepared by his wife, and drove his construction crew to work. Around 6:50 AM, federal immigration agents surrounded Salgado Araujo\u2019s van&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2252253189.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}