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‘WE’LL NEED TO SEE A WARRANT’: THE GROUP TEACHING BUSINESSES A
VITAL TOOL TO FIGHT ICE RAIDS  
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Emily Cataneo
December 8, 2025
The Guardian
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_ Siembra in North Carolina gives owners fourth amendment rights
trainings should federal agents show up at their door _

Protesters flock to downtown Raleigh for anti-ICE protest.
Demonstrators carried signs advocating for immigrant kindness and
community unity, expressing fears for family and neighbors' safety.,
Photo: Aaron Glancy/WRAL News

 

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border
Protection agents descended on North Carolina last month, many local
businesses were ready to push back. Posted on store- and
restaurant-front windows across the state were signs reading:
“private area”, “fourth amendment workplace” and “There’s
always room at our table, but to enter past this point, we’ll need
to see a warrant signed by a judge.”

The signs are part of a new fourth amendment strategy launched by the
North Carolina immigrant rights group Siembra, to teach business
owners their rights if federal agents show up at their door. While
most Americans can name the rights protected by the first and second
amendments, far fewer are familiar with the fourth, which prohibits
unreasonable government searches and seizures. Siembra is working to
change that, seeing the fourth amendment as a vital tool in fighting
against the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdowns.

 
“The constitution is the highest law of the land,” said Emanuel
Gomez Gonzalez, communications strategist at Siembra. “Even at a
time when there are such flagrant violations, that’s there. If we
are to insist on the lawfulness of our governance, the constitution
offers a clear example of inalienable rights. And that includes all of
us.”

[a sign reads: ‘Everyone is welcome here but if you’re a federal
agent, to enter past this point, we’ll need to see a warrant signed
by a judge.’]
Sign at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro, North Carolina, reads:
‘Everyone is welcome here but if you’re a federal agent, to enter
past this point, we’ll need to see a warrant signed by a judge.’
Photograph: courtesy of Steve Mitchell

According to Siembra, this means that ICE agents are not legally
allowed to enter private areas, such as kitchens or storage rooms,
without a warrant; employees have the right to call a lawyer or an
advocacy organization; and business owners can shelter an undocumented
employee in a private area, but they cannot shelter a customer.

Siembra created a workbook outlining its strategy, as well as
printable posters, workplace trainings, a pledge for business owners
and a team of volunteers who canvass and persuade business owners to
sign on to that pledge. So far, more than 250 businesses across the
state have signed on. (Siembra’s workbook is free online, so that
groups across the US can access it.)

Angela Salamanca, an immigrant from Colombia who owns several
restaurants in Raleigh and Durham, said that once she heard about the
pledge, she immediately signed up. For 15 years, she has strategized
on how to best protect her undocumented employees from raids, arrests
and deportations, and said she was always looking for new resources in
the face of changing immigration policy.

“We have worked with Siembra for a while, and when they started this
initiative, it’s the language we speak,” she said.

Jackie Ramirez, a Siembra organizer in Johnston county, just south of
Raleigh, has been conducting fourth amendment trainings for months.
She visited a taqueria where business had been sluggish because
patrons were scared into staying home. “[The owner] asked me,
‘I’ve seen you around here doing this work, do you have the
ability to train businesses and make them feel safe now?” Ramirez
recalled.

She quickly onboarded them, but not every business is so eager.

When Ramirez visited a beloved local taco shop in Newton Grove,
south-east of Raleigh, and tried to persuade them to sign on, she was
stonewalled. “The cashier said, ‘no, that never happens here,
we’re good.’ I reached out to the owner and they never got back to
me,” she said.

Gonzalez says this type of response isn’t uncommon. When immigration
is in the news, community members are eager to jump on board, but it
is easier to ignore when it is not happening right now, in your city
or town, he said.

[Sign on from Renee’ Reynolds frame shop in Graham, North Carolina.]
Sign on from Renee’ Reynolds’s frame shop in Graham, North
Carolina. Photograph: courtesy of Renee’ Reynolds

“Throughout the course of Trump 2.0, in North Carolina specifically,
there have been moments of high levels of urgency where people have
been very activated around what they can and should be doing to
participate in community defense, and there have been lulls,”
Gonzalez said. “There can be times where it’s challenging to
illustrate the necessity of preparing to exercise your constitutional
rights.”

Some reluctance also stemmed from fear. Ramirez said she had talked to
managers who were afraid that by erecting signage, they were putting a
target on their heads. That’s partly why Siembra has courted not
just Latinx-owned businesses, or ones that employ undocumented people,
but everyone.

Earlier in the year, Siembra approached Steve Mitchell, co-owner of
the well-known Scuppernong Books in Greensboro, about signing on to
the pledge, to create momentum among other businesses in the area.
Mitchell, who is white, knew that ICE raids would not personally
affect him or his staff. But he was still eager to sign on.

“We definitely wanted to sign on to show our support for the
resistance to the idiotic things that are going on at the moment,”
Mitchell said, adding that Siembra’s signs and materials in his
store have sparked conversations and questions from customers who want
to help.

Renee’ Reynolds, owner of the picture frame shop 64 Harvard in
downtown Graham, a small city halfway between Durham and Greensboro,
had a similar motivation. She asked for the training after meeting
some Siembra canvassers, and found herself receiving a crash course on
the constitution.

“I didn’t know about those rights, so I learned a lot,” she
said.

Reynolds said her position as a fourth amendment business sent a
message to customers and passersby – and, hopefully, to other
business owners. “If I have the courage to speak loudly, hopefully
it can inspire other people to do so as well,” she said.

Next, Gonzalez said Siembra wants to expand to neighboring towns and
city governments in North Carolina. Durham and the town of Carrboro
have signed on, which means they will train municipal employees, pass
resolutions condemning specific ICE actions, and spread the word to
local businesses about the fourth amendment push. City councils in
Chapel Hill and Greensboro are pushing forward initiatives to do the
same.

Siembra isn’t the only group in the US training communities on the
fourth amendment as a way to push back against ICE. Some groups, like
the Oregon-based Baddies for the Fourth and the city government of
Cleveland Heights, Ohio, are implementing similar fourth amendment
strategies, and Gonzalez said that before Siembra rolled out its own
initiative, groups around the country engaged in similar work,
including the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights
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zones” by training community members on their constitutional rights.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the door’s always open for local
businesses that want to join. Some weeks after Ramirez visited the
Newton Grove taqueria, whose owner had previously ignored her calls,
federal agents showed up in the roundabout right outside the
restaurant and started making arrests. “It was the first time in my
area of the state that it was that clear they were detaining folks,”
she said. In the aftermath, she went back to the taqueria.

“I finally met the owner in person,” she said. “And he was like,
yes, I want the training.”

* ICE protest
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* North Carolina
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* Popular Resistance
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* training
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