468 U.S. 1032 (1984)
In 1976, INS agents arrested Adan Lopez-Mendoza at his workplace, a transmission repair shop in San Mateo, California, without a warrant after receiving a tip.1 The agents questioned him about his identity and nationality, leading to his admission that he was a Mexican citizen who had entered the country without inspection.2 Agents prepared a Record of Deportable Alien form and an affidavit that Lopez-Mendoza signed admitting his Mexican nationality and illegal entry.3
Lopez-Mendoza appeared before an Immigration Judge in a deportation proceeding.4 His counsel moved to terminate the proceeding based on the allegedly unlawful arrest, but the judge ruled the legality of the arrest irrelevant and admitted the form and affidavit into evidence without objection.5 The judge found Lopez-Mendoza deportable and granted voluntary departure.6 The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the order.7
In 1977, INS agents including Agent Bower arrested Elias Sandoval-Sanchez at a potato processing plant in Pasco, Washington, during a workplace survey conducted with the personnel manager's permission.8 Agents detained Sandoval-Sanchez along with thirty-six other employees after questioning those who aroused suspicion, then took them to the county jail where Sandoval-Sanchez admitted unlawful entry.9 At his deportation hearing, the Immigration Judge rejected the claim of illegal arrest as irrelevant to the proceeding, admitted the record of admissions, and ordered Sandoval-Sanchez deportable with voluntary departure.10 The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed his appeal.11
Both respondents appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which sitting en banc reversed Sandoval-Sanchez's deportation order and vacated and remanded Lopez-Mendoza's order.12 The Ninth Circuit held that Sandoval-Sanchez's admission was the fruit of an unlawful arrest and that the exclusionary rule applied in deportation proceedings.13 The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the cases.14
Whether an admission of unlawful presence in this country made subsequently to an allegedly unlawful arrest must be excluded as evidence in a civil deportation hearing?15
No. In the deportation proceedings against Lopez-Mendoza and Sandoval-Sanchez, the INS introduced admissions of Mexican nationality and unlawful entry that followed warrantless workplace arrests.18 The Court weighed the Janis factors and determined that although the same agency conducts both arrests and hearings, the high volume of over one million annual apprehensions combined with the INS internal regulations on stops and arrests, the low likelihood that any given arrest will be challenged, and the availability of declaratory relief reduce the incremental deterrent value to a level that does not justify the costs.19 Those costs include forcing courts to ignore continuing violations of the immigration laws and disrupting the streamlined administrative process in which immigration judges handle six hearings per day.20 The admissions were therefore admissible.
The admissions of unlawful presence need not be excluded as evidence in the civil deportation hearings.21
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Brennan fully agreed with Justice White that the Janis and Calandra analysis requires the exclusionary rule to apply in civil deportation proceedings.22 He believed the basis for the exclusionary rule is found in the requirements of the Fourth Amendment itself rather than solely in its deterrent effect.23 Brennan concluded that the admission of evidence secured pursuant to unlawful arrests in civil deportation proceedings would infringe Fourth Amendment rights.24
He emphasized that the Government of the United States bears an obligation to obey the Fourth Amendment that is not lifted because the officers were INS agents or the evidence was used in civil proceedings.25
Justice White dissented because he believed the majority based its conclusion on an incorrect assessment of the costs and benefits of applying the exclusionary rule in civil deportation proceedings.26 He noted that civil deportation proceedings are in no sense collateral to the INS agents' primary objective of using evidence in those proceedings.27 White pointed out that the same agency officials who effect the unlawful arrest subsequently bring the deportation action.28
He rejected the majority's arguments that voluntary departures, the INS internal disciplinary scheme, and alternative remedies sufficiently dilute the deterrent force of the rule.29 White concluded that the costs and benefits of applying the exclusionary rule in civil deportation proceedings do not differ in any significant way from those in ordinary criminal proceedings.30
Justice Marshall agreed with Justice White that application of the Janis and Calandra mode of analysis compels the conclusion that the exclusionary rule should apply in civil deportation proceedings.31 He continued to believe that this mode of analysis fails to reflect the constitutionally mandated character of the exclusionary rule.32 Marshall stressed that a sufficient reason for excluding evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment from civil deportation proceedings is to avoid the taint of judicial partnership in official lawlessness.33
He also sought to assure the people that the government would not profit from its lawless behavior, thereby minimizing the risk of seriously undermining popular trust in government.34
Justice Stevens declined to join the portion of Justice White's opinion that relies on United States v. Leon.35 He explained that the Court has not yet held that the rule of United States v. Leon has any application to warrantless searches.36 He therefore joined only those parts of the dissent that did not depend on the good-faith exception announced in Leon.37
This position reflects Stevens's view that any extension of the Leon exception to the warrantless-search context would require separate and careful consideration by the Court before it could be applied in deportation proceedings.
Whether the identity or body of a respondent is suppressible as the fruit of an unlawful arrest in a deportation proceeding?38
The body or identity of a respondent in a civil or criminal proceeding is never itself suppressible as the fruit of an unlawful arrest even when the arrest is conceded to have been unlawful.39
No. Lopez-Mendoza objected only to being summoned to the deportation hearing after an allegedly unlawful arrest and raised no objection to the Form I-213 or the affidavit that were received into evidence.40 Because the identity of the respondent is not suppressible the Court of Appeals decision as to Lopez-Mendoza was required to be reversed on that ground alone without reaching the exclusionary-rule question.41
The identity or body of a respondent is not suppressible as the fruit of an unlawful arrest in a deportation proceeding.42