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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."
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