Federal immigration agents conducted one of the largest workplace raids in U.S. history on a Tuesday evening in early September, arresting hundreds of workers at a Hyundai plant. That same night, the Durham City Council was quietly passing a resolution that could fundamentally alter how American cities protect their workers.
In a unanimous vote, Durham declared itself a “Fourth Amendment Workplace”. Joining Carrboro as the second North Carolina city to do so, the resolution transforms abstract constitutional rights into practical worker protection by training city employees to demand judicial warrants from federal agents.
Why does this matter for workers beyond immigration status? Fear of federal agents stops employees from reporting wage theft, safety violations, and employer abuses. This affects all workers. When a workplace feels like an enforcement zone, everyone becomes reluctant to speak up about dangerous conditions.
This represents a new frontier in immigration enforcement battles. It sidesteps the usual political rhetoric about sanctuary cities to focus on something seemingly less controversial: the Constitution itself.
But the implications extend far beyond immigration. As the Trump administration has escalated workplace raids that netted nearly 500 workers in a single day, Durham offers a template for how workplaces and local governments might shield their workers from federal enforcement tactics designed as much to silence and intimidate as to enforce immigration law.
“While local leaders cannot legally override the federal government’s use and weaponization of ICE,” Mayor Leo Williams said, “we can and must stand in strategic solidarity with our neighbors.”
The word “weaponization” was not accidental.
A Constitutional Education
Council member Javiera Caballero introduced the resolution after months of grassroots organizing by Siembra NC. The organization trains volunteers to canvas businesses statewide about constitutional rights. Their pitch is simple: federal agents often exceed their authority during workplace raids, and most employers and workers don’t know how to respond.
The training covers practical details most Americans never learn: distinguishing between administrative warrants that agencies issue to themselves and judicial warrants signed by judges; which workplace areas require judicial warrants; how to film interactions with federal agents without interfering.
Over 200 businesses statewide have joined the network, creating a protective buffer of constitutionally literate workplaces. This is a significant expansion from the 88 workplaces initially reported earlier this year.
Their counterintuitive strategy deliberately starts with businesses that employ few immigrants first. Why? When mainstream establishments like bookstores and coffee shops assert Fourth Amendment rights against ICE raids, it normalizes resistance and protects restaurants and farms that employ more immigrants. “We think that the most vulnerable workplaces are going to be less likely to be targeted if there are high-profile, high foot traffic businesses saying the Fourth Amendment is important,” organizer Andrew Willis Garcés explained.
Durham’s resolution formalizes this grassroots education at the municipal level. City staff must now “uphold the 4th amendment at their workplace and report back to Council any barriers to effective training,” turning constitutional rights into job requirements. Durham joins Carrboro, which became the first Triangle-area city to pass such a resolution in May.
The Economics of Fear
Since the Trump administration took office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has unleashed the largest workplace enforcement campaign in its history, conducting sweeps that have detained hundreds of workers at construction sites, farms, and factories across the country. The agency’s biggest single operation occurred just last week at the Hyundai battery plant construction site in Georgia, where 475 workers were arrested, most of which were South Korean nationals working for subcontractors.
But labor advocates argue these raids serve an even darker purpose: engineering a subjugated workforce across entire industries.
Elise Ballan, chair of Durham’s Workers’ Rights Commission, minced no words about the Trump administration’s enforcement strategy: “[It] puts anyone who does not appear white, anyone who does not speak English or has an accent, anyone regardless of papers or immigration status, at risk of abuse, abduction and even deportation.”
When entire communities fear federal agents, employers gain leverage over all workers. Documented or not, everyone becomes exploitable.
Durham’s resolution explicitly acknowledges this dynamic, stating that the threat of “unconstitutional seizure” has prevented immigrants from “safely engaging in public life, including pursuing employment and education.” The language frames immigration enforcement as an economic and civic issue, not just a legal one.
Testing Constitutional Limits
The resolution puts Durham on a collision course with state policy.The North Carolina General Assembly recently overrode Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of House Bill 10, legislation requiring local sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration agents for at least 48 hours when ICE issues detainer requests. Durham officials have categorically rejected this mandate.
Mayor Pro Tempore Mark Anthony Middleton declared a candidate forum that he would never support Durham Police Department collaborating with ICE “in any fashion,” highlighting the growing rift between state and local officials over immigration enforcement. Middleton recently wrote that the Fourth Amendment Workplace resolution was “not in defying federal authority, but in ensuring that the constitution that I swore to uphold as an elected official is honored.”
The constitutional grounding of Durham’s approach may provide legal protection that traditional sanctuary city policies lack. Unlike federal immigration law, the Fourth Amendment applies to all government actors and protects everyone on U.S. soil.
Recent federal court decisions have begun to address these constitutional questions, though with mixed results. In May 2025, a federal magistrate judge in Texas ruled that ICE must obtain judicial warrants to search private areas of businesses for suspected undocumented immigrants, finding that administrative warrants issued by ICE to itself don’t satisfy Fourth Amendment requirements. However, the Supreme Court in September 2025 allowed ICE “roving patrols” in California to continue despite lower court findings that they likely violated the Fourth Amendment, signaling the complex and evolving nature of this legal terrain.
Durham’s resolution trains city employees to enforce Fourth Amendment protections that federal agents often ignore by using administrative warrants instead of judicial ones.
A Model for Resistance
Durham follows Carrboro, which became the first North Carolina city to declare itself a Fourth Amendment Workplace in May. The success of both resolutions has drawn attention from organizers across the country.
The Fourth Amendment Workplace initiative is now being adapted and implemented in 14 other states, with organizers in Oregon forming a “Baddies for the 4th” group and communities across the country exploring similar protections. The model appeals to officials by avoiding sanctuary city politics while asserting constitutional protections conservatives can’t oppose.
The immediate impact in Durham is already visible. The resolution passed less than two months after four plainclothes ICE agents appeared at the Durham County Courthouse, alarming the community. “Our residents witnessed ICE agents in our community, instilling widespread fear and uncertainty,” Mayor Leo Williams said after the incident. Residents organized a demonstration and march from the courthouse that day, showing how municipal policy and grassroots organizing work together.
For city employees, the resolution creates concrete expectations: they will receive constitutional training, understand federal authority limits, and know how to respond when those limits are exceeded. It directs city staff to “uphold the 4th amendment at their workplace and city agencies and report back to Council any barriers to effective training”, transforming abstract legal rights into practical workplace skills.
The Broader Stakes
Durham’s resolution represents a bet that constitutional education can serve as worker protection when traditional labor safeguards are under assault. By teaching municipal employees to assert Fourth Amendment rights, the city is training them to resist federal overreach that has become routine.
The approach recognizes that immigration enforcement has implications far beyond immigration policy. When workers are afraid to engage with government agencies, report workplace violations, or assert their rights, it undermines the foundations of democracy.
Durham’s experiment will test whether cities can use constitutional law to shield workers from federal policies designed to silence them. If successful, it could provide a blueprint for how local governments protect worker rights when federal policy fails them.
The question is not whether other cities will follow Durham’s lead, but how quickly they can adapt this model to their communities’ needs. As federal enforcement increasingly serves to intimidate rather than protect, constitutional literacy may become the new frontier of worker protection.
As one Durham organizer said: “If they want to do something illegal, they will. But they’re also using psychological terrorism. Knowing what we’re allowed to do, and not making it easy for them, can help.”
Primary Sources:
- ABC11: “Durham Council adopts Fourth Amendment workplace resolution”
- Reuters: “US immigration agents arrest hundreds at Hyundai plant, mostly Koreans”
- CNN: “Supreme Court allows ICE patrols in California to continue”
- Steptoe LLP: “Judge holds that ICE workplace warrants must comply with the Fourth Amendment”
- Indy Week: “Inside the movement to teach ICE defense to N.C. business owners”
Further Reading:
- Houston Public Media: coverage of Durham’s Fourth Amendment Workplace resolution (2025)
- The Assembly NC: Siembra NC workplace rights training
- WRAL: Durham Fourth Amendment workplace declaration
- National Immigration Law Center: resources on ICE enforcement and workers’ rights
- American Constitution Society: analysis of workplace raids and Fourth Amendment protections
