CA9: Immigration detention without RS or PC subject to suppression

Defendant was entitled to suppress the evidence of his alienage because the government detained him without reasonable suspicion. The government gets no safe harbor in Summers because the purpose of the detention was rounding up foreign nationals to remove them. Cruz v. Barr, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 17674 (9th Cir. June 13, 2019):

The law enforcement interests underlying Summers are fully consistent with this conclusion. “In Summers, the Court recognized three important law enforcement interests that, taken together, justify the detention of an occupant who is on the premises during the execution of a search warrant: officer safety, facilitating the completion of the search, and preventing flight.” Bailey, 568 U.S. at 194; see also Summers, 452 U.S. at 702-03. These interests are parallel to those underlying the Fourth Amendment limitations applicable to suspicionless searches discussed above. Inventory searches, for example, are justified by “three distinct needs: the protection of the owner’s property while it remains in police custody, the protection of the police against claims or disputes over lost or stolen property, and the protection of the police from potential danger.” South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 369, 96 S. Ct. 3092, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1000 (1976) (citations omitted). Yet the Supreme Court has long recognized that an inventory search is impermissible if “the police … acted in bad faith or for the sole purpose of investigation.” Bertine, 479 U.S. at 372. “That Summers detentions aid police in uncovering evidence and nabbing criminals does not distinguish them from the mine run of seizures unsupported by probable cause, which the Fourth Amendment generally proscribes.” Bailey, 568 U.S. at 206 (Scalia, J., concurring).