CA4 explains Terry‘s “must diligently pursue the investigation of the justification for the stop” when ICE was called

A stop led to ICE being called, and that slowed “investigation of the justification for the stop.” However, the officer’s “calling ICE to inquire into the validity of the Gaitan ID is analogous in many ways to how an officer routinely runs a driver’s license and registration to check their validity,” and here it was not unreasonable. United States v. Guijon-Ortiz, 660 F.3d 757 (4th Cir. 2011):

Strictly speaking, the scope and duration inquiries under Terry’s second prong are distinct. They become intertwined, however, in cases where, as here, the actions a defendant argues exceeded the scope of the stop necessarily also extended its duration. This raises the following question: Under what circumstances, if ever, may an officer prolong a traffic stop to investigate matters unrelated to the justification for the stop and without reasonable suspicion, whether through questioning or other means?

. . .

As we explained in Digiovanni, for a traffic stop to satisfy Terry’s second prong, the police officer “must diligently pursue the investigation of the justification for the stop.” Id. (citing Sharpe, 470 U.S. at 686). Although we have held that “where a delay can be characterized as de minimis under the totality of the circumstances, it will not be recognized as a Fourth Amendment violation,” id. (citing Mason, 628 F.3d at 132), the principal inquiry, as articulated by the Sixth Circuit, is “the officer’s diligence—i.e., his persevering or devoted application to accomplish the undertaking of ascertaining whether the suspected traffic violation occurred, and, if necessary, issuing a ticket.” United States v. Everett, 601 F.3d 484, 494 (6th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). If “the totality of the circumstances, viewed objectively, establishes that the officer, without reasonable suspicion, definitively abandoned the prosecution of the traffic stop and embarked on another sustained course of investigation, this would surely bespeak a lack of diligence.” Id. at 495.

This standard incorporates both the duration and scope components of Terry’s second prong. Some courts and commentators have questioned whether the scope component survives Johnson. See United States v. Stewart, 473 F.3d 1265, 1269 (10th Cir. 2007) (“The correct Fourth Amendment inquiry (assuming the detention is legitimate) is whether an officer’s traffic stop questions ‘extended the time’ that a driver was detained, regardless of the questions’ content.”); Reid M. Bolton, Comment, The Legality of Prolonged Traffic Stops After Herring: Brief Delays as Isolated Negligence, 76 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1781, 1786-87 (2009). We disagree, because, as we have explained: “[T]he scope of a police officer’s actions during a traffic stop still is relevant to the reasonableness analysis under the Fourth Amendment … because, during a stop, a police officer must act reasonably, that is, he must diligently pursue the investigation of the justification for the stop.” Digiovanni, 650 F.3d at 509. Johnson holds only that unrelated questioning that does not prolong a traffic stop does not render the stop unlawful. In cases where, as here, the questioning does extend the seizure, the scope of an officer’s unrelated investigation could be relevant to whether the officer “definitively abandoned the prosecution of the traffic stop and embarked on another sustained course of investigation.” Everett, 601 F.3d at 495.

We acknowledge that in Digiovanni the issue was whether police questioning caused the traffic stop to exceed its permissible scope and duration. Here, in contrast, the action Guijon-Ortiz argues prolonged the stop was the call to ICE, which Flowers made from the patrol car while the three men waited in the pickup truck. We believe the “diligently pursue” standard applies nonetheless, because either questioning a person directly or pursuing other means of investigation may, in the context of a particular traffic stop, be relevant to whether an officer diligently pursued the investigation of the justification for the stop.

Our approach is in accord with not only that of the Sixth Circuit in Everett but also that of at least the Eighth and Ninth Circuits. See United States v. Turvin, 517 F.3d 1097, 1101 (9th Cir. 2008) (holding that “whether questioning unrelated to the purpose of the traffic stop and separate from the ticket-writing process that prolongs the duration of the stop may nonetheless be reasonable” is determined by “examin[ing] the ‘totality of the circumstances’ surrounding the stop”); United States v. Olivera-Mendez, 484 F.3d 505, 510 (8th Cir. 2007) (“Whether a particular detention is reasonable in length is a fact-intensive question, and there is no per se time limit on all traffic stops. When there are complications in carrying out the traffic-related purposes of the stop, for example, police may reasonably detain a driver for a longer duration than when a stop is strictly routine.”) (citing Sharpe, 470 U.S. at 685-87).