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WASHINGTON — <\/span>Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people\u2019s homes without a judge\u2019s warrant<\/a>, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo<\/a> obtained by The Associated Press, marking a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The shift comes as the Trump administration dramatically expands immigration arrests nationwide, deploying thousands of officers under a mass deportation campaign<\/a> that is already reshaping enforcement tactics<\/a> in cities such as Minneapolis.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n The memo itself has not been widely shared within the agency, according to a whistleblower complaint, but its contents have been used to train<\/a> new ICE officers who are being deployed into cities and towns to implement the president\u2019s immigration crackdown. New ICE hires and those still in training are being told to follow the memo\u2019s guidance instead of written training materials that actually contradict the memo, according to the whistleblower disclosure. <\/p>\n 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<\/a> of the home of a Liberian man in Minneapolis on Jan. 11 with only an administrative warrant, wearing heavy tactical gear and with their rifles drawn.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The memo, signed by the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, and dated May 12, 2025, says: \u201cAlthough 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.”<\/p>\n The memo does not detail how that determination was made nor what its legal repercussions might be. <\/p>\n When asked about the memo, Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement to the AP that everyone the department serves with an administrative warrant has already had \u201cfull due process and a final order of removal.\u201d<\/p>\n She said the officers issuing those warrants have also found probable cause for the person\u2019s arrest. She said the Supreme Court and Congress have \u201crecognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement,\u201d without elaborating. McLaughlin did not respond to questions about whether ICE officers entered a person\u2019s home since the memo was issued relying solely on an administrative warrant and if so, how often.<\/p>\n Whistleblower Aid, a non-profit 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 \u201cdisclosing a secretive – and seemingly unconstitutional – policy directive.\u201d<\/p>\n A wave of recent high-profile arrests, many unfolding at private homes<\/a> and businesses and captured on video, has shined a spotlight on immigration arrest tactics, including officers\u2019 use of proper warrants.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n All law enforcement operations \u2014 including those conducted by ICE and Customs and Border Protection \u2014 are governed by the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects all people in the country from unreasonable searches and seizures.<\/p>\n People can legally refuse federal immigration agents entry into private property if the agents only have an administrative warrant, with some limited exceptions.<\/p>\n Federal agents this month rammed the door of the Minneapolis home of a Liberian man with a deportation order from 2023, who was then arrested. Documents reviewed by The AP revealed that the agents only had an administrative warrant \u2014 meaning there was no judge who authorized the raid on private property.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The memo says officers must first knock on the door and share who they are and why they\u2019re at the residence. They\u2019re limited in the hours they can go into the home \u2014 after 6 a.m. and before 10 p.m. The people inside must be given a \u201creasonable chance to act lawfully.\u201d But if that doesn\u2019t work, the memo says, they can use force to go in.<\/p>\n \u201cShould the alien refuse admittance, ICE officers and agents should use only a necessary and reasonable amount of force to enter the alien\u2019s residence, following proper notification of the officer or agent\u2019s authority and intent to enter,\u201d the memo reads.<\/p>\n The memo is addressed to all ICE personnel. But it has been shown only to \u201cselect DHS officials\u201d who then shared it with some employees who were told to read it and return it, Whistleblower Aid wrote in the disclosure.<\/p>\n 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 to Congress, Whistleblower Aid said.<\/p>\n 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 \u201csafe and legal path to disclose it to lawmakers and the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n ICE has been rapidly hiring thousands of new deportation officers to carry out the president\u2019s mass deportation agenda. They\u2019re trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, Georgia.<\/p>\n During a visit there<\/a> by The Associated Press in August, ICE officials said repeatedly that new officers were being trained to follow the Fourth Amendment.<\/p>\n But according to the whistleblowers\u2019 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.<\/p>\n