ICE Memo Reveals Officers' Authority to Enter Homes Without Judicial Warrants

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WASHINGTON (AP) — According to an internal memo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement obtained by The Associated Press, federal immigration agents are now claiming expanded authority to enter homes without a judicial warrant, marking a significant departure from previous guidelines that aimed to respect constitutional boundaries regarding government searches.

This memo empowers ICE officers to forcibly enter residences using only a narrower administrative warrant to detain individuals with final removal orders. Advocates argue this action conflicts with Fourth Amendment rights and undermines years of counsel provided to immigrant communities.

ICE recently detained a 5-year-old boy and his father in Minnesota, as reported by local schools.

Teyana Gibson Brown, second from right, wife of Garrison Gibson, reacts after a federal immigration officer used a battering ram to break down a door before arresting Garrison Gibson, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

This policy shift occurs amidst a nationwide escalation in immigration arrests under the Trump administration, which has launched a broad deportation strategy, significantly altering enforcement methods in cities like Minneapolis.

Historically, immigrant rights organizations, legal assistance groups, and local authorities have advised against opening doors to immigration officials without a judge-signed warrant. This guidance is based on Supreme Court precedents that generally restrict law enforcement from entering homes without judicial consent. The new ICE policy challenges this longstanding advice, coinciding with an increased pace of arrests under the administration’s intensified immigration enforcement.

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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