ICE Agents Entering Homes Without Warrants Is Blatantly Un-Constitutional — a Violation of 4th Amendment — ‘the Greatest Right’

By Frances Vinall, Arelis R. Hernández and Maria Sacchetti / Washington Post / Jan. 22, 2026

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo instructs agents and officers that they can enter a person’s home to arrest them without a judicial warrant, a move that immigration lawyers and advocates say violates the Constitution.

The memo was included in a disclosure to senators by Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit legal organization, based on information provided by two of their clients, government employees who are not named in the document. It requests that lawmakers investigate its claims. The memo was separately shared with The Washington Post and was first reported by the Associated Press.

Several people with direct knowledge confirmed the directive existed but said they did not know whether it was widely shared within the agency.

The policy was issued in May and has been carried out in places such as Texas, the disclosure alleges. The Post could not independently confirm where it has been put into practice.

The memo, signed by Todd M. Lyons, acting director of ICE, gives the agency broad authority to enter homes to arrest immigrants. Officers are instructed that they can use a Form I-205 to force entry into a private residence. A Form I-205 is signed by an immigration enforcement official and authorizes an arrest following a final order of removal.

The memo advises ICE officers and agents to “use only a necessary and reasonable amount of force” to enter the home of someone who has a removal order and does not grant them permission to enter.

In an emailed statement, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin did not dispute the authenticity of the memo and said that every person subject to a Form I-205 has “had full due process and a final order of removal from an immigration judge.”

“For decades, the Supreme Court and Congress have recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement,” she added.

Under President Donald Trump, immigration officers have been testing their legal authorities and, in some cases, exceeding them. Judges have criticized them for holding immigrants without bond, deporting them without hearings, and now, forcing their way into private homes without a warrant signed by a judge.

Asked about the memo at a news conference in Minneapolis on Thursday, ICE official Marcos Charles said:

“We don’t break into anybody’s home. We make entry in either hot pursuit or with a criminal arrest warrant or administrative arrest warrant. The thing to remember is these administrative arrest warrants have been deemed justified by courts in immigration purposes.”

Vice President JD Vance also downplayed any concerns during a visit to the city later that day, saying, “Nobody is talking about doing immigration enforcement without a warrant.” He said seeking an administrative warrant would be “very consistent with the practice of American law” and that he was “sure the courts will weigh in on that.”

But legal experts say officials are conflating two very different things: A judicial warrant is signed by an independent and neutral judge who examines the evidence to determine if it is sufficient to grant the government the extraordinary power to force their way into someone’s home.

An administrative immigration warrant has none of those properties: They are almost always signed by a federal immigration officer — akin to the police — and the legal justification is not subject to review by a judge.

The issue is critical because the Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect people from invasive government actions in their homes, shielding them from unreasonable searches and seizures. ICE’s fixation on warrants stems from years of frustration over officers’ inability to easily arrest someone at home after they are ordered deported. Advocacy groups have long advised immigrants to refuse to open the door for an officer unless they had a judicial warrant, and ICE rarely does for civil immigration enforcement.

Getting a judicial warrant is “a lot more work,” said Nithya Nathan-Pineau, a policy attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, an immigrant rights organization. Preparing evidence for a judge to review is time-consuming at a time when the White House is pressuring ICE to arrest millions.

“While the administration may put out a narrative that there are no rights for immigrants, those rights still exist,” she said. “It doesn’t always feel that way, but we are still protected by the Constitution.”

Whistleblower Aid, which represents the government officials who brought the memo to light, said government employees who flagged the memo consider it “a flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

“This Fourth Amendment right is the right that the Supreme Court has said is the greater amongst equals of the Bill of Rights,” David Kligerman, senior vice president and special counsel at Whistleblower Aid, said in a phone interview. He added that the Constitution’s framers were “most concerned, of all the rights, about folks being able to be safe in their homes from arbitrary government invasion.”

“It’s just shocking,” he said. “Every chief executive who’s had the opportunity to enforce their immigration laws has never wanted to come close to this red line. No one wants to degrade this Fourth Amendment right, not in this way.”

According to the disclosure, the memo has not been formally distributed among ICE personnel but has been shown to some DHS supervisors who have passed it on to some employees to read and return.

Ryan Wood, the former assistant chief immigration judge in Minnesota, said the memo effectively gives agents a “license to break down doors” and that there are few meaningful legal remedies available for homeowners or individuals whose rights were violated. He described it as an “unchecked government power.”

“There’s really no consequences when these egregious Fourth Amendment violations happen,” said Wood, who trained scores of ICE agents on how to conduct arrests lawfully. “There’s really no disincentive for ICE other than self-imposed restraints and that appears to be gone with this new memo.”

Attorneys can file a lawsuit to challenge a warrantless arrest and seek the person’s release, as lawyers did in the case of a man from Liberia in Minnesota this month. But Wood said there is not much to stop agents from rearresting an individual with a final deportation order after that process plays out.