Federal immigration officers do not need a judge’s approval to forcibly enter peoples’ homes, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo obtained by the Associated Press. The memo reverses the agency’s longstanding guidance requiring a judicial warrant to do so.
Whistleblowers raise concerns
The nonprofit group Whistleblower Aid says it represents two anonymous U.S. government officials who turned the May 2025 memo over to Congress. They allege that it permits forced entry without just probable cause that someone is in the country illegally.
Download the SAN app today to stay up-to-date with Unbiased. Straight Facts™.
Point phone camera here
The group contends that the ICE memo violates the Fourth Amendment and the Department of Homeland Security’s own policy manual.
Prior to the memo, ICE officers could enter homes only with a judicial warrant. Now, all they need is deportation orders.
“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 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.”
– Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons in an internal memo dated May 12, 2025
The memo says agents have to knock on the door and identify themselves first, but if they’re denied entry, they can let themselves in. It also limits the window in which they can carry out administrative warrants to between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
Whistleblowers say the memo was distributed only to “select DHS officials,” before they shared it with certain employees under the instruction to read it and return it.
The whistleblower disclosure also says instructors at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Brunswick, Ga. “are directed to verbally train all new ICE Agents to follow this policy while disregarding written course material instructing the opposite.”
DHS pushes back
The Department of Homeland Security is standing by the order. In an e-mail to the AP, spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said officers who enter people’s homes under administrative warrants have found probable cause for the person’s arrest.
“Every illegal alien who DHS serves administrative warrants/I-205s have had full due process and a final order of removal from an immigration judge,” McLaughlin said. “The officers issuing these administrative warrants also have found probable cause. For decades, the Supreme Court and Congress have recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement.”
This story is featured in today’s Unbiased Updates. Watch the full episode here.
The AP reports that 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.
Call for investigation
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., has already issued a formal call for an investigation, calling for hearings in both the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees.
Unbiased. Straight Facts.TM
The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable government searches and seizures, requiring warrants based on probable cause that specifically describe what to search or seize.
“Every American should be terrified by this secret ICE policy authorizing its agents to kick down your door and storm into your home. It is a legally and morally abhorrent policy that exemplifies the kinds of dangerous, disgraceful abuses America is seeing in real time,” Blumenthal said in a statement.
He wrote a letter the Director of FLETC “to determine if instructors have secretly been directed to verbally train newly hired ICE agents to enter people’s homes without a judicial warrant.”
Blumenthal also wrote a letter addressed to Lyons and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, demanding answers about the new policy and how it’s being implemented.
