Protecting Privacy, Protecting Democracy: Government Surveillance in U.S. Libraries

Abstract

In the first fifty days of President Trump’s second term, Immigration
Customs and Enforcement (ICE) made 32,809 arrests
related to immigration enforcement, more than the entirety of
the prior year under President Biden’s administration.1 8 U.S.C.
§ 1357 gives ICE agents the power to “interrogate any alien or
person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or to remain
in the United States” without a warrant.2 This increase in ICE
activity is particularly relevant to librarians, as law