When ICE Comes to a Workplace
Miguel Reyes heard the rumor at the packing house on a Tuesday, a coworker saying agents had been parked outside a facility two towns over that morning. He didn’t know what to do with that information, and neither did most of the people standing near him. That uncertainty is the norm, not the exception. Workplace enforcement actions don’t happen at most worksites, but when they do, they move fast, and the people caught up in them usually have very little time to decide what to do.
This page walks through what a workplace raid generally looks like, what rights you have during one, what California law requires of your employer, and what to do afterward whether you were taken into custody or not. None of this is legal advice for your specific situation. Enforcement encounters are high-stakes, and what you should do depends on facts only you and a lawyer can evaluate together.
What a Workplace Raid Generally Looks Like
A workplace enforcement action, commonly called a raid, typically involves agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, arriving at a worksite to detain individuals they believe are not authorized to work in the United States. These operations vary in scale. Some involve a handful of agents looking for a specific person named in a warrant. Others involve a large team sweeping through a facility and questioning everyone present.
In a typical operation, agents arrive and identify themselves to management. They may present a judicial warrant, an administrative warrant, or no warrant at all, and the legal distinction between these matters enormously. A judicial warrant is signed by a judge and can authorize entry or search to the extent stated in the warrant’s terms. An administrative warrant, the kind ICE issues on its own forms, is generally issued within the immigration system by an immigration official rather than a judge, and it is widely understood not to carry the same weight as a judicial warrant when it comes to entering nonpublic areas of a workplace. Many operations rely on administrative warrants or on employer consent to enter.
Once inside, agents generally move through the workplace identifying and questioning workers. They may ask for identification, immigration documents, or work authorization. The entire process can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Workers who are detained are typically transported to an ICE facility for processing, which may or may not lead to immediate removal proceedings.
Your Rights During a Raid
You have constitutional rights during a workplace enforcement action regardless of your immigration status. These rights exist on paper and in law, but exercising them in the middle of a fast-moving, frightening situation is a different matter entirely. Knowing them in advance is the only realistic way to use them when it counts.
The Right to Remain Silent
You don’t have to answer questions about where you were born, how you entered the country, or what your immigration status is. You can say, clearly and calmly, “I am exercising my right to remain silent.” This applies whether you’re speaking with ICE agents, supervisors relaying questions on their behalf, or anyone else. In practice, agents may continue asking questions after you invoke this right. You can continue to decline. Silence is not an admission of anything.
The Right to Refuse Consent to a Search
If agents ask to search your personal belongings, your car, or your locker, you can say no. Saying “I do not consent to a search” doesn’t guarantee the search won’t happen, but it preserves your legal position if the matter ever reaches a courtroom. Don’t physically resist, but do state your refusal clearly.
The Right to Ask Whether You Are Free to Leave
You can ask, “Am I being detained, or am I free to go?” If the answer is that you’re free to go, leave calmly. If the answer is that you’re being detained, you can continue to remain silent and ask to speak with a lawyer before answering questions. In immigration proceedings, federal law gives you the right to be represented by a lawyer, but at no expense to the government, so it generally won’t appoint one for you (8 U.S.C. § 1362, as of June 2026). Ask clearly: “I want to speak with a lawyer before answering any questions.”
Do Not Sign Anything You Don’t Understand
Agents may present documents and ask for signatures. Some of these documents can waive your right to see a judge or accept removal without a hearing. Don’t sign anything you don’t fully understand, and if you’re uncertain, say you want a lawyer to review it first. This is not being difficult. This is protecting yourself.
What You Must Do
If agents have a valid judicial warrant with your name on it, you are generally required to comply with its terms. You’re also generally required not to physically obstruct agents in the performance of their duties, even if you believe those duties are being carried out improperly. The place to challenge an improper action is later, in court, with a lawyer, not in the moment with agents who have already decided what they’re doing.
California Labor Protections During Enforcement
California has a specific law, AB 450, sometimes called the Immigrant Worker Protection Act, that governs what employers must and cannot do when immigration enforcement agents arrive at a worksite. This law doesn’t prevent federal agents from conducting operations, but it places obligations on employers that don’t exist in most other states. The distinction matters.
AB 450 was written to keep employers from voluntarily letting immigration agents into non-public areas of a workplace without a judicial warrant. That’s the key word: judicial. An administrative warrant, the kind ICE issues internally, is a different thing from a warrant signed by a judge. How far this part of the law can be enforced against private employers has been narrowed by federal court rulings and is still being litigated, so an employer’s exact obligation here isn’t fully settled. What hasn’t changed is the underlying point for workers: agents generally need a judicial warrant, not an administrative one, to lawfully enter non-public areas without consent. You can check the current status of AB 450 through the California Legislature and the state’s official AB 450 guidance, current as of June 2026.
Employers are also required under AB 450 to notify current employees within 72 hours of receiving a notice of inspection of I-9 forms or other employment records by an immigration agency. In California, that notice generally must be posted for all current employees and provided to any union representative, if applicable. This part of the law remains in effect as of June 2026, and the state publishes the employer requirement and a notice template through the California Department of Industrial Relations. This doesn’t happen at every worksite that gets audited. But it’s the law, and knowing it gives you something concrete to point to if your employer doesn’t follow through.
AB 450 was also written to limit employers from re-verifying employment eligibility in ways not required by federal law, though that piece has likewise been affected by the same federal litigation. In plain terms, the law was meant to stop an employer from demanding to see your papers again outside the federally required process as a pretext for pushing you out the door. For a fuller treatment of employer obligations outside the enforcement context, see Employer Obligations.
What Employers Must Do and Where Their Limits Are
Your employer occupies an uncomfortable middle position during a workplace enforcement action. They’re subject to federal law on employment eligibility, and they’re simultaneously subject to California law on how they handle the encounter. Those obligations sometimes pull in different directions, and employers don’t always get it right.
Here’s what California law generally addresses during and after an enforcement action. AB 450 was written to limit when an employer may voluntarily consent to warrantless entry into non-public areas, and when an employer may hand over employee records without a subpoena or judicial warrant, though how strongly these limits can be enforced against private employers is currently affected by ongoing litigation. The employer must post notice to current employees about an I-9 inspection within 72 hours of receiving the federal notice. And California law generally protects employees from retaliation for exercising their rights during the encounter.
That last one is critical. An employer who fires you, cuts your hours, threatens you, or reports you to immigration authorities because you exercised a legal right during a raid may be violating California law. Retaliation protections exist regardless of your immigration status, a point California courts and agencies have affirmed repeatedly. If you believe your employer retaliated against you, the labor rights page covers your options for filing a complaint and connecting with enforcement agencies that handle these claims.
Where employers fall short most often isn’t in dramatic violations. It’s in the quieter failures: not posting required notices, not notifying workers about audits, allowing agents into break rooms or production floors without asking to see a judicial warrant, or pressuring workers to quit voluntarily after an audit. These patterns don’t always get challenged because the workers affected don’t always know they have something to challenge.
After a Raid
What happens next depends on whether you were taken into custody or whether you remained at the worksite. Both situations require action, and the first hours matter.
If You Were Detained
You should be given access to a telephone and to legal contact procedures after processing. Use that access as quickly as you can. Contact a family member or trusted person and give them the name of the facility where you’re being held, if you know it. Contact a lawyer or have someone contact one on your behalf. Free and low-cost immigration legal services exist throughout California, and organizations that respond to enforcement actions can often mobilize quickly. The urgent help page on this site has current contact information for rapid-response legal networks.
Continue to exercise your right to remain silent until you’ve spoken with a lawyer. Don’t sign papers that give up your right to a hearing or agree to removal without legal counsel reviewing them first. This is not about being uncooperative. It’s about not giving up rights you may need later, in proceedings you can’t yet see the shape of.
If you have children who need to be picked up from school or dependents who need care, communicate that as clearly and quickly as you can to whoever you’re able to reach by phone. Having a family preparedness plan in place before anything happens, designating who picks up the kids, where important documents are kept, who has power of attorney, can make an enormous difference in those first chaotic hours. Many families put this off because thinking about it feels like inviting trouble. It isn’t. It’s being realistic.
If You Were at the Worksite but Not Detained
Write down everything you remember as soon as you can. How many agents came, what they said, whether they showed a warrant, whether your employer let them in or asked for credentials, what areas they entered, and what happened to coworkers who were taken. These details matter if legal action follows, whether that’s a challenge to the raid itself, a labor complaint against the employer, or testimony supporting a detained coworker’s case.
If your employer pressures you to resign, sign new paperwork, or submit to document checks not required by federal law in the days after a raid, don’t comply without talking to someone who knows your rights. Fear after an enforcement action is rational, and employers sometimes exploit that fear in ways California law specifically prohibits. You aren’t required to be braver than you feel, but you are entitled to know what the law says before you make decisions you can’t undo.
Next Steps
If a raid has already happened at your workplace, the most important thing you can do right now is connect with a lawyer, not tomorrow, today. The urgent help page lists free legal hotlines and rapid-response organizations across California that handle exactly this situation. If no raid has happened but you want to be prepared, talk to your family about a basic plan: who handles the children, where documents are stored, which lawyer or legal aid organization you’d call. The labor rights page covers your workplace protections in broader detail, including how to file a complaint if your employer violated AB 450. For a deeper understanding of what employers are required to do and what they aren’t, Employer Obligations walks through the federal and California rules side by side. Preparation isn’t pessimism. It’s the most practical thing you can do for yourself and the people who depend on you.
The information on this page is general. Your situation may be different. Before making any decisions, talk to a qualified immigration attorney or accredited representative. Free and low-cost legal help is available in California, find it here.
