‘Unconstitutional and cruel’: ICE memo allows agents to enter homes without judicial warrant
WASHINGTON— Democratic lawmakers and constitutional rights experts expressed outrage after reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials wrote a memo saying deportation agents were allowed to enter immigrants’ homes — by force if necessary — without a judicial arrest warrant.
The internal memo gives ICE agents the authority to forcibly enter a residence to arrest someone as long as the agents have an executive order that includes a final deportation order.
Administrative permits are internal documents issued by immigration authorities and are not signed by judges. Arrest warrants are court orders based on probable cause that a crime has been committed.
Critics of the government said the note was first Associated PressIt represents a reversal of longstanding guidance aimed at complying with constitutional limits on government searches. Immigrants have long been advised not to open their doors to agents unless they see an arrest warrant signed by a judge.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called for an investigation, saying the new policy should “horrify every American.”
Blumenthal, who voiced his concerns in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons on Wednesday, said the guidance was a “blatant disregard for the legal protections that have protected the American people and our democracy for the past 250 years.”
Trump administration officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, argued Thursday that the guidance was appropriate and legal.
WhistleblowerAid.org, An advocacy group filed a complaint with the U.S. Senate this week about the memo’s guidance and released a copy of the memo dated May 12, 2025. The note appears to have been signed by Lyons, but his signature could not be independently verified.
The whistleblower group’s complaint was based on information provided by two government officials who said the policy violated the 4th Amendment’s guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure.
Whistleblowers claimed that the memo was not widely distributed, but that some agents were verbally briefed on its contents; Others were allowed to see the note but were not allowed to keep a copy. The whistleblowers said in their complaint that new ICE hires were trained on the memo’s guidance.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, responded to the Associated Press report in a statement about
Immigration judges are employees of the Department of Justice and cannot issue judicial warrants.
An earlier post about X from the Homeland Security account stated that if an immigrant with a final deportation order refuses to leave, “they are fugitives from justice.”
David Kligerman, special counsel for WhistleblowerAid.org, said no court has found that ICE agents can enter homes without judicial warrant. He believes the agency kept it secret because it couldn’t withstand legal challenges.
“This is a 180-degree angle from where DHS has been under many administrations,” he said in an interview. “But the guidance was clear and unwavering: A judicial warrant is required to enter a home, period.”
Kligerman points out Statements on Thursday Speaking in Minneapolis on Thursday, Vance said: “Our understanding is that if you have an executive order, you can enforce the nation’s immigration laws under an administrative order… This is our best faith attempt to understand the law.”
Appearing to anticipate a legal challenge to the new policy, Vance added that “if the courts say no, I will comply with that law.”
Kligerman said Vance’s comments were troubling and that he was concerned the ICE memo was part of a broader effort to deprive immigrants of their constitutional rights.
The ICE directive comes as the Trump administration has dramatically increased immigration detentions across the country and sent thousands of officers to cities like Minneapolis. Tensions there have been particularly heated this month following the shooting death of 37-year-old U.S. citizen Renee Good, an ICE agent.
On Sunday, ICE agents broke down the door of 56-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen ChongLy “Scott” Thao, guns drawn, and forced him outside into the snow, barely dressed with a blanket covering his shoulders. Homeland Security said agents were investigating sex offenders at Thao’s address, but He didn’t live there.
ICE agents must knock on the door and announce their identity and purpose, then give residents a reasonable chance to act lawfully before using “only the necessary and reasonable amount of force to enter the stranger’s home,” the memo says.
“Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security [DHS] In the past, DHS has not relied solely on warrants to detain aliens who are subject to final deportation orders at their place of residence, and the DHS Office of General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on warrants for this purpose, the statement said.
Some Democrats reacted quickly to the memo, using it as justification for voting against a bill to fund the department. The bill passed the House on Thursday by a vote of 220-207, with seven Democrats splitting from their party to vote in favor of the bill.
On
“I totally disagree with their interpretation of the Constitution here,” said Kerry Doyle, who was the attorney general for ICE and Homeland Security under the Biden administration. “I think it’s really problematic, both legally and practically, to take a legal interpretation that has been the basis of law in this area for decades and overturn it in that way. It’s not something I would support or personally sign off on.”
Marcos Charles, ICE’s deputy administrator for Enforcement and Removal Operations, said at a press conference in Minneapolis on Thursday that agents “are not breaking into anyone’s home without permission. We go in in hot pursuit, either with a criminal warrant or an administrative arrest warrant.”
