The American Immigration Council is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. Two whistleblowers recently revealed a secret U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy permitting agents to forcibly enter the homes of certain noncitizens without a judicial warrant. According to a memo issued in May 2025, ICE now believes it can enter homes with just an administrative warrant—an ICE Form I-205. The memo is contrary to decades of agency policy and practice and even their current written training materials.
ICE’s new position is remarkable. This country was founded, in part, in response to British officers entering the homes of American colonists without sufficient oversight. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their . . . houses” and prohibits—except in the case of an emergency—entry without a “Warrant[].”
All noncitizens are “people” protected by the Fourth Amendment.
What is a judicial warrant?
Over half a century ago, the Supreme Court made clear that under the Fourth Amendment, a “warrant” is issued by a “neutral and detached magistrate.” The Court has similarly made clear that such a warrant is required before law enforcement can force their way into a home to make an arrest.
“The point of the Fourth Amendment,” the justices explained, is to make sure that an impartial party considers the evidence before a warrant issues. Allowing law enforcement officers to make their own decisions about when they can knock down your door “would reduce the Amendment to a nullity and leave the people’s homes secure only in the discretion of police officers.”
What is an administrative warrant?
Unlike a judicial warrant, an administrative warrant is not reviewed by an independent party. As the ICE memo itself recognizes, any supervising ICE officer can sign Form I-205.
Moreover, while the I-205 requires that the person have a deportation order, even that order is not issued by a neutral magistrate. Unlike a criminal prosecution, where a person is prosecuted by the Executive Branch but tried before a judge in the Judicial Branch and convicted by a jury of peers, noncitizens are ordered removed by administrative judges. In removal proceedings, both the prosecutor (ICE, a subagency of the Department of Homeland Security) and the administrative judge (an immigration judge working for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a subagency of the Department of Justice) are within the Executive Branch. The leader of each agency serves in the President’s cabinet.
Moreover, immigration judges can order children and people who miss a hearing deported—so a noncitizen may have a removal order and not even know it.
Notably, the ICE memo suggests that this new policy could be applied to all noncitizens, not just people with removal orders.
While a sixty-five-year-old Supreme Court decision seemed to leave open the possibility that an administrative warrant could support entry into a home, decades of more recent decisions say otherwise.
An administrative warrant is not a true “warrant” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment and should not be used to justify ICE agents ramming down doors.
Why did ICE keep this policy secret?
ICE’s new policy only came to light because two whistleblowers came forward. In their letter to Congress, they explain the lengths ICE went to hide the policy. Senior ICE officials have refused to distribute physical copies of the memo even within ICE. They have provided only oral instructions to ICE agents, rather than altering written training materials. The memo itself does not explain the legal justification for the new policy. Another memo from the DHS Office of Legal Counsel remains secret and may very well avoid public scrutiny under the Freedom of Information Act.
It appears that ICE does not want a paper trail.
How can this new policy be challenged?
ICE’s efforts to hide the new policy from the public suggest, at a minimum, that the agency recognizes it is vulnerable to legal challenges.
There are significant hurdles to seeking compensation for unconstitutional conduct by individual ICE agents. And unlike in criminal proceedings, there’s generally no rule that prevents ICE from using evidence it obtains illegally in immigration proceedings.
But as the many lawsuits challenging unlawful ICE arrest practices show, there are mechanisms to stop illegal ICE policies. It remains to be seen how, and when, the new policy will be tested in federal court.
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It’s unknown how many times ICE has forced its way into people’s homes based only on an administrative warrant in the eight months since the memo issued—though ChongLy “Scott” Thao, the elderly U.S. citizen ICE arrested in Minneapolis last week, reported that ICE agents forcibly entered his home pointing guns and never presented a warrant.
The May memo represents just one more striking example of ICE’s efforts to expand its power and avoid judicial oversight. It is one that threatens not only noncitizens, but the people they live with—including U.S. citizen children, spouses, parents, and neighbors. And as Mr. Thao’s case demonstrates, ICE also makes mistakes as it pursues its mass deportation goals.
For an increasingly violent agency that has placed American cities—Minneapolis, Portland, New Orleans, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Charlotte, Los Angeles—under siege, the memo serves as an invitation to bring that violence into the sanctity of our homes.
