ICE Asserts Power to Enter Homes       01/22 06:25

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power 
to forcibly enter people's homes without a judge's warrant, according to an 
internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated 
Press, marking a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect 
constitutional limits on government searches.

   The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based 
solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final 
order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment 
protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities.

   The shift comes as the Trump administration dramatically expands immigration 
arrests nationwide, deploying thousands of officers under a mass deportation 
campaign that is already reshaping enforcement tactics in cities such as 
Minneapolis.

   For years, immigrant advocates, legal aid groups and local governments have 
urged people not to open their doors to immigration agents unless they are 
shown a warrant signed by a judge. That guidance is rooted in Supreme Court 
rulings that generally prohibit law enforcement from entering a home without 
judicial approval. The ICE directive directly undercuts that advice at a time 
when arrests are accelerating under the administration's immigration crackdown.

   The memo itself has not been widely shared within the agency, according to a 
whistleblower complaint, but its contents have been used to train new ICE 
officers who are being deployed into cities and towns to implement the 
president's immigration crackdown. New ICE hires and those still in training 
are being told to follow the memo's guidance instead of written training 
materials that actually contradict the memo, according to the whistleblower 
disclosure.

   It is unclear how broadly the directive has been applied in immigration 
enforcement operations. The Associated Press witnessed ICE officers ramming 
through the front door of the home of a Liberian man, Garrison Gibson, with a 
deportation order from 2023 in Minneapolis on Jan. 11, wearing heavy tactical 
gear and with their rifles drawn.

   Documents reviewed by The AP revealed that the agents only had an 
administrative warrant -- meaning there was no judge who authorized the raid on 
private property.

   The change is almost certain to meet legal challenges and stiff criticism 
from advocacy groups and immigrant-friendly state and local governments that 
have spent years successfully urging people not to open their doors unless ICE 
shows them a warrant signed by a judge.

   The Associated Press obtained the memo and whistleblower complaint from an 
official in Congress, who shared it on condition of anonymity to discuss 
sensitive documents. The AP verified the authenticity of the accounts in the 
complaint.

   The memo, signed by the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, and dated May 
12, 2025, says: "Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has 
not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens 
subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office 
of the General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the 
Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not 
prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose."

   The memo does not detail how that determination was made nor what its legal 
repercussions might be.

   Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in an e-mailed 
statement to the AP that everyone the department serves with an administrative 
warrant has already had "full due process and a final order of removal."

   She said the officers issuing those warrants have also found probable cause 
for the person's arrest. She said the Supreme Court and Congress have 
"recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration 
enforcement," without elaborating. McLaughlin did not respond to questions 
about whether ICE officers entered a person's home since the memo was issued, 
relying solely on an administrative warrant and if so, how often.

   Recent arrests shine a light on tactics

   Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit legal organization that assists workers 
exposing wrongdoings, said in the whistleblower complaint obtained by The 
Associated Press that it represents two anonymous U.S. government officials 
"disclosing a secretive -- and seemingly unconstitutional -- policy directive."

   A wave of recent high-profile arrests, many unfolding at private homes and 
businesses and captured on video, has placed a spotlight on immigration arrest 
tactics, including officers' use of proper warrants.

   Most immigration arrests are carried out under administrative warrants, 
internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest 
of a specific individual but do not permit officers to forcibly enter private 
homes or other non-public spaces without consent. Only warrants signed by 
judges carry that authority.

   All law enforcement operations -- including those conducted by ICE and 
Customs and Border Protection -- are governed by the Fourth Amendment of the 
Constitution, which protects all people in the country from unreasonable 
searches and seizures.

   People can legally refuse federal immigration agents entry into private 
property if the agents only have an administrative warrant, with some limited 
exceptions.

   Memo shown to 'select' officials

   The memo says ICE officers can forcibly enter homes and arrest immigrants 
using just a signed administrative warrant known as an I-205 if they have a 
final order of removal issued by an immigration judge, the Board of Immigration 
Appeals or a district judge or magistrate judge.

   The memo says officers must first knock on the door and share who they are 
and why they're at the residence. They're limited in the hours they can go into 
the home -- after 6 a.m. and before 10 p.m. The people inside must be given a 
"reasonable chance to act lawfully." But if that doesn't work, the memo says, 
they can use force to go in.

   "Should the alien refuse admittance, ICE officers and agents should use only 
a necessary and reasonable amount of force to enter the alien's residence, 
following proper notification of the officer or agent's authority and intent to 
enter," the memo reads.

   The memo is addressed to all ICE personnel. But it has been shown only to 
"select DHS officials" who then shared it with some employees who were told to 
read it and return it, Whistleblower Aid wrote in the disclosure.

   One of the two whistleblowers was allowed to view the memo only in the 
presence of a supervisor and then had to give it back. That person was not 
allowed to take notes. A whistleblower was able to access the document and 
lawfully disclose it to Congress, Whistleblower Aid said.

   Although the memo was issued in May, David Kligerman, senior vice president 
and special counsel at Whistleblower Aid, said it took time for its clients to 
find a "safe and legal path to disclose it to lawmakers and the American 
people."

   Memo says ICE officers are told to rely solely on administrative warrants

   ICE has been rapidly hiring thousands of new deportation officers to carry 
out the president's mass deportation agenda. They're trained at the Federal Law 
Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, Georgia.

   During a visit there by The Associated Press in August, ICE officials said 
repeatedly that new officers were being trained to follow the Fourth Amendment.

   But according to the whistleblowers' account, newly hired ICE officers are 
being told they can rely solely on administrative warrants to enter homes to 
make arrests, even though that conflicts with written Homeland Security 
training materials.

   Lindsay Nash, a law professor at Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law 
in New York, said the memo "flies in the face" of what the Fourth Amendment 
protects against and what ICE itself has historically said are its authorities.

   She said there's an "enormous potential for overreach, for mistakes and 
we've seen that those can happen with very, very serious consequences."