Judge Pauses Warrantless Immigration Raids at Job Sites in Baldwin County Citizen’s Case

Chief U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Beaverstock temporarily stayed three DHS practices challenged by Leo Garcia Venegas, a U.S. citizen construction worker detained at Baldwin County job sites.

By James Bullard

September 22, 2026 · 7:13 am Updated November 7, 2026 12 min read

Judge Pauses Warrantless Immigration Raids at Job Sites in Baldwin County Citizen's Case

A federal judge in Mobile on Monday, Sept. 21, temporarily stopped the Department of Homeland Security from using three immigration enforcement practices at private construction sites, siding for now with a Baldwin County construction worker who says federal agents detained him repeatedly even though he is a U.S. citizen. The order puts meaningful limits on warrantless immigration raids at job sites while the lawsuit moves forward.

Chief U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Beaverstock of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama found that Leonardo “Leo” Garcia Venegas is likely to succeed on his claims that the challenged practices violate the Fourth Amendment and federal immigration regulations. Rather than issue the formal preliminary injunction Venegas requested, the judge chose what he described as a less drastic remedy: a temporary stay of the three policies while the case continues.

The ruling does not halt federal immigration enforcement in Baldwin County or anywhere else. It suspends the three specific practices at the center of the lawsuit, and the government continues to dispute that those practices exist at all.

What the Judge’s Order Stays

Venegas’ lawsuit targets three practices his attorneys say DHS has used at construction sites. In his order, Beaverstock described them this way and stayed each one:

Warrantless Entry Policy: permitting immigration officers to raid private construction sites without a warrant or consent.
Preemptive Detention Policy: permitting immigration officers to preemptively detain employees without a particularized suspicion that they are in the country illegally.
Continued Detention Policy: permitting immigration officers to keep detaining workers even after they show evidence of citizenship or lawful presence.

“The Court has considered the implication of both remedies and determined the best course of action is to temporarily stay the policies,” Beaverstock wrote. “Although this Court has found that Venegas is likely to succeed on the merits, it also recognizes that ‘[a]n injunction is a drastic and extraordinary remedy.’”

In practical terms, the order means immigration officers may not conduct warrantless raids at private construction sites, may not detain workers without a specific reason to suspect a particular person is undocumented, and must release workers who provide evidence of U.S. citizenship or lawful presence.

A stay and an injunction are related but different tools. An injunction is a court order directing a party to do or stop doing something, and it is typically reserved for situations where a court believes lesser measures will not do. A stay, by contrast, suspends the operation of a policy or action while litigation proceeds. Federal courts reviewing agency action can use a stay to pause a challenged policy without issuing the broader commands an injunction carries.

Three Encounters That Led to the Lawsuit

Venegas was born in Florida and lives in Baldwin County. He filed suit against DHS in September 2025 after being detained during immigration operations at construction sites where he was working, according to the Institute for Justice, the national libertarian public-interest law firm representing him.

The first encounter came in May 2025 at a Lennar construction site in Foley. According to the lawsuit, officers moved toward his Latino work crew, and Venegas began recording as agents detained his brother. He says officers then tackled him, handcuffed him and held him for more than an hour. He repeatedly told them he was a U.S. citizen and had an Alabama STAR ID, the state’s REAL ID-compliant license, but he says officers initially told him the identification could be fake. He was eventually released without being charged.

Less than a month later, in June 2025, Venegas says it happened again. He was working inside a nearly completed home at a D.R. Horton development in Fairhope when an officer entered and ordered him outside. He told officers he was a citizen and showed his identification. He says he was taken to an unmarked vehicle and held with other Latino workers for roughly 20 to 30 minutes before being released.

Then, in May 2026, Venegas said he was detained a third time, this time near his home in Silverhill. Venegas said federal agents followed him while he was driving his brother’s truck. Court records said the vehicle’s tag was registered to his brother, who is undocumented. Venegas said he was pulled from the vehicle, handcuffed, placed in leg shackles and put in the back of a law enforcement vehicle. His attorneys have described the encounter as happening in his own driveway and said he was tackled to the ground during it.

Venegas said agents initially did not look at his STAR ID and later scanned his license to confirm his status. He said he still was not immediately released while agents continued investigating and waited for a K-9 unit to inspect the vehicle.

That third encounter became important to the case. His attorneys argued it showed the earlier detentions were not isolated incidents and that he remained at real risk of being detained again, which matters because a plaintiff seeking to stop future government conduct must show an ongoing threat of harm, not just a past injury. Beaverstock had already refused to throw the case out on standing grounds, finding Venegas had shown enough evidence of an ongoing threat, and earlier this month he rejected the government’s request to dismiss the suit. Venegas’ attorneys are also asking that the case be treated as a class action on behalf of other construction workers.

A Workplace Is Not an “Open Field”

Much of Monday’s order addressed whether federal agents need a warrant or consent to walk onto a private construction site. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Mobile argued that agents did not necessarily need one, comparing a construction site to an “open field” and contending that Venegas had no expectation of privacy because he did not own the properties and was not a supervisor.

The “open fields” doctrine is a long-standing principle of Fourth Amendment law holding that the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches does not extend to open, undeveloped land away from a home. Beaverstock rejected the idea that construction sites can simply be treated that way.

“When taken at face value, this position undermines the fact specific considerations required by Fourth Amendment precedent,” he wrote.

The judge noted that the Foley site was an active private worksite and that the second encounter happened inside a nearly completed home. “First, here, it was objectively obvious that people were actively working in the development and at each residential site,” he wrote. “The land was not abandoned, undeveloped, unoccupied, or even unmarked. Instead, the site where Venegas was encountered was clearly the yard of a partially constructed home on a lot delineated by a small fence marker.”

Beaverstock wrote that Venegas cited several cases offering “convincing authority” that workers have a right to privacy in the workplace. Even though Venegas was not a supervisor, the judge said, as an employee he had authority to tell someone entering the site to leave. “As a result, the Court is satisfied that Venegas, an employee working at his place of work, has a reasonable expectation of privacy,” he wrote.

Detentions Without Suspicion, and the STAR ID Question

The judge was also critical of the government’s explanation for why Venegas was detained in the first place. Federal attorneys argued that officers had reasonable suspicion during the Foley encounter because Venegas appeared to be interfering with another arrest and could have posed an officer-safety concern. Beaverstock said video did not show Venegas verbally or physically interfering, and he noted that other workers who did not appear Hispanic were not detained for officer-safety reasons. He wrote that the government offered “no factual support whatsoever” for why officers reasonably believed Venegas might be in the country illegally.

On continued detention, Beaverstock pointed out that Alabama issues driver’s licenses only to citizens or people lawfully present in the country, and said Venegas’ STAR ID should have created a presumption that he was legally in the United States. Instead, according to the record, officers kept holding him after seeing it. “A policy that permits such action is likely to run afoul of the Fourth Amendment,” the judge wrote.

Identification has been a recurring flashpoint in the case. At a May hearing on the request for a preliminary injunction, a DHS official testified that agents do not treat REAL ID as reliable proof of legal presence. Venegas’ attorneys have highlighted the tension: DHS certifies and administers the REAL ID Act, and then-Secretary Kristi Noem spent considerable time last year encouraging Americans to get REAL IDs. Under the federal law, states must verify an applicant’s lawful status before issuing a compliant credential.

The lawsuit also alleges that DHS adopted the challenged practices as part of a broader push to increase arrests. “Plaintiff alleges DHS adopted the three challenged policies as part of a broader directive from the White House and Border Czar Homan to increase immigration arrests and removals,” the filing states, “by raiding workplaces based on which industries tend to employ undocumented workers rather than a prior investigation to identify whether there’s any reason to suspect that employees on a particular worksite are undocumented.”

The Government’s Position

The federal government disputes Venegas’ description of its enforcement practices. A Homeland Security Investigations supervisor in Mobile told the court he was not aware of the three policies and said agents are trained to require reasonable suspicion before an investigative detention and probable cause before making an arrest.

The government maintains that none of the three policies actually exist, but it also argued that granting relief would “curtail Congressionally authorized Federal law enforcement of Executive Branch immigration policies, hinder lawful investigative searches, and chill routine field operations.”

Beaverstock was not persuaded by that combination. “It defies reason then, that enjoining those policies would ‘curtail’ anything,” he wrote.

Beaverstock was appointed to the federal bench by President Donald Trump during Trump’s first term.

Reaction From Venegas and His Attorneys

Venegas said the ruling changes his daily life. “For the first time in a long time, I will be able to go to work without worrying that I will be arrested for no reason,” he said. “Americans cannot be stopped and held by law enforcement when they are doing nothing wrong.”

Jared McClain, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, called the decision “a huge blow to DHS’s lawless enforcement practices.”

“The government stood up in court and argued that they don’t need warrants to enter private construction sites and round up all the workers, and that they can’t trust government-issued IDs,” McClain said. “By setting aside those unconstitutional policies, the court has restored the rule of law. Construction workers like Leo can finally go to work in peace again.”

Jaba Tsitsuashvili, another attorney representing Venegas, said the order is an important step toward protecting workers, including U.S. citizens, from unlawful detentions. “Construction workers, just like everybody, have the Fourth Amendment right to work in peace without fear of government interference,” he said.

“What this ruling means is that DHS has to comply with the Fourth Amendment when it does immigration enforcement or any other law enforcement,” Tsitsuashvili added. “This is a big, meaningful win for Leo and other construction workers just like him.”

What Happens Next

Monday’s order is temporary, and the lawsuit remains ongoing. The court still must address the request to certify the case as a class action, and the government may continue to contest both the existence of the policies and the scope of any relief. Venegas’ attorneys said they plan to keep pursuing protections for construction workers and U.S. citizens.

The case carries particular weight in Baldwin County, one of the fastest-growing counties in Alabama, where residential construction in communities such as Foley, Fairhope, Silverhill and across the Eastern Shore relies on large crews working for national homebuilders and local contractors alike. For now, workers on those sites have a federal court order limiting when immigration officers can enter and whom they can hold.

Update: New details from the order, the government’s filing and ICE arrest data (Sept. 22, 2026)

Chief U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Beaverstock’s order runs 24 pages. In it, he described the warrantless entry, preemptive detention and continued detention practices as “likely illegal” and explained why he chose a stay over an injunction. “In the court’s opinion, staying the likely unlawful policies is a less drastic remedy sufficient to redress Plaintiff’s alleged injury,” he wrote.

According to the lawsuit, Venegas has lived in Alabama since he was 14. The two job-site detentions happened on May 21 and June 12, 2025. Both times, he says, he showed officers his Alabama STAR ID and was told it could be fake.

The government’s account of the May 21 encounter

In a court filing, Victoria Todd, an attorney for the defendants, argued that Venegas tried to interfere with an arrest during the May 21 operation and created a safety risk.

“(Venegas) attempted to move around the HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) special agent, who instructed plaintiff to stop. However, the plaintiff instead quickened his pace, and circled the arresting ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) deportation officer,” the filing said. “Plaintiff’s actions caused the HSI special agent to be concerned for safety—due to the presence of a concrete pad with exposed rebar and other sharp objects in the area—and due to Plaintiff’s refusal to comply with any commands given.”

Venegas’ lawsuit says white and Black workers were also on the site that day and were not detained. The judge relied on that point in rejecting the safety argument.

“The government’s position that the safety of the officers was a factor is unsupported by the record, especially given that there were multiple individuals on the jobsite who did not appear to be Hispanic, and none of those individuals were detained in the name of safety,” Beaverstock wrote.

Why the STAR ID mattered

The order spells out why the judge found that holding someone after they show a REAL ID-compliant license likely violates the Fourth Amendment. “Venegas’ license also has a star in the corner, which he could obtain only with the documents DHS certifies are compliant with the federal REAL ID Act,” Beaverstock wrote. “Under that Act, a REAL ID ‘suffice[s] to establish lawful presence.'”

To get a STAR ID in Alabama, an applicant must provide several documents: a passport or other government-issued document showing identity and date of birth, a Social Security number and proof of address.

The Institute for Justice also said that at the time of the June 12 arrest, Venegas was working inside a mostly built home on a site that was sectioned off and posted with No Trespassing signs. According to the group, agents walked in without a warrant because DHS had told officers they do not need one to enter construction sites.

Federal Tort Claims Act claims

Venegas has also filed administrative claims with the federal agencies involved, signaling that he intends to sue under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the law that lets people seek damages from the federal government for certain wrongful acts by its employees. His attorneys say those claims will be added to the current lawsuit.

Requests for comment were left Tuesday with McClain and with the Department of Homeland Security.

ICE arrests in Alabama

The case comes as immigration arrests in the state have climbed. The Deportation Data Center, a project of the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles, counts more than 10,000 Alabamians arrested and detained by ICE since January 2025. June 2026 was the peak month so far, with 934 people in Alabama arrested and detained.