ICE's administrative warrants don't authorize forced home entry, legal experts say

Federal immigration agents conducting arrests under the Trump administration’s intensified enforcement campaign are relying primarily on administrative warrants that do not legally authorize them to force entry into private homes or businesses, legal experts said. Only criminal warrants signed by judges carry that authority — a distinction that came into sharp focus in Minneapolis, where documents reviewed by the Associated Press showed agents entered a private home with only an administrative warrant. DHS did not provide a legal justification for the entry when asked.

The gap between the warrants agents carry and what those documents authorize has fueled confrontations at private residences across the country, raising questions about legal accountability that experts said may be difficult to resolve given the federal government’s current enforcement posture.

The warrant distinction

All law enforcement operations — including those conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — are governed by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects all people in the country from unreasonable searches and seizures regardless of immigration status, according to the Associated Press.

The type of warrant matters. Judicial warrants are issued by a court and signed by a magistrate or federal judge; they allow law enforcement to enter and search private property and make an arrest without the property owner’s consent. Administrative warrants, by contrast, are issued by an agency, officer, or immigration judge. They authorize the arrest of a specific individual but do not permit officers to forcibly enter private homes or other nonpublic spaces without consent, legal experts said.

That means people can legally refuse federal immigration agents entry into private property if the agents carry only an administrative warrant, legal experts said.

Limited exceptions apply — including situations where someone is in immediate danger, an officer is actively pursuing a suspect, or someone inside a residence is calling for help — but those exceptions do not apply in routine immigration arrests, legal experts said.

The Minneapolis incident

The legal distinction came to the fore when immigration law enforcement raided a private home in Minneapolis, clashing with protesters who confronted the heavily armed agents. Documents reviewed by the Associated Press showed agents had only an administrative warrant for the operation, meaning no judge had authorized the entry onto private property.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin did not provide a legal justification for the forced entry when asked, according to the AP. McLaughlin said the arrested man — a Liberian national with a 2023 deportation order — was part of the administration’s efforts to arrest “the worst of the worst” and cited a criminal history including “robbery, drug possession with the intent to sell, possession of a deadly weapon, malicious destruction and theft.” She did not specify whether he was convicted of any of those crimes or whether his arrest was related to any criminal activity.

Accountability limits

John Sandweg, a former ICE acting director, told the AP that risks of such incidents increase as enforcement has expanded to include Border Patrol agents conducting work traditionally performed by ICE officers.

“Your risks of all of these types of incidents increase dramatically when you take officers out of their normal operating environment and ask them to do things that they have not been trained to do, because it’s not part of their core missions,” Sandweg said.

Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, said a forced entry without consent could expose officers to both civil and criminal liability.

“That is not just an illegal arrest. It’s numerous illegal actions by the officer themselves that could open up liability, not just for being sued, but potential criminal actions under state law as well,” Altman said.

Altman said it was unclear whether realistic accountability pathways exist, given that the federal government would be responsible for investigating any such breach.

“There are layers of federal laws and regulations and policies prohibiting this kind of behavior. But then the second layer is: Is the federal government going to impose consequences?” she said.

Immigrants face additional obstacles when challenging an unlawful arrest. The exclusionary rule, which bars illegally obtained evidence in criminal proceedings, generally does not apply in immigration court, though it can be applied there under certain circumstances, Altman said. That limits most people facing deportation from having a judge set aside evidence or an arrest on the basis of how it was conducted.

“As those legal challenges come and people are facing very, very quick detentions and deportations on the basis of these illegal arrests, there’s very little recourse in actual immigration court proceedings that allows people to have a judge disregard evidence or the actual arrest, even if it was done in this very violent, illegal manner,” Altman said.

Know-your-rights campaigns

ICE has long used “knock and talk” operations, in which agents informally request residents to step outside without indicating they intend to make an arrest. A 2020 federal lawsuit resulted in a judge finding the practice illegal.

In response, activists, lawyers, and local governments have launched educational campaigns informing immigrants of their constitutional rights during encounters with federal agents, regardless of immigration status. These campaigns typically advise people to ask to see a warrant before opening a door and note that they may legally refuse entry if agents carry only an administrative warrant.