ICE memo would allow home entries without judge’s warrant, advocates say

Immigrants often don’t open the door to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, a longstanding practice that has relied on the idea that the Fourth Amendment limits forced entry into homes. But the Associated Press reported on Jan. 23, 2026, that an internal ICE memo obtained by the news organization would allow officers to forcibly enter homes without a judge’s warrant, potentially changing guidance that immigrant communities have shared for decades.

The report describes how ICE enforcement tactics can be shaped by the kind of warrant involved. It says most immigration arrests have been carried out under administrative warrants that authorize an arrest, but traditionally did not extend to entry into private spaces without consent.

AP’s story ties the controversy to the memo’s alleged shift in approach, and to a broader increase in immigration arrests tied to a mass deportation campaign by President Donald Trump’s administration. The story also says it is unclear how broadly the directive in the memo has been applied in enforcement operations.

A central question raised by advocates in the AP report is whether the memo would change the legal assumption many residents have been taught to rely on: that the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure bars the government from forcing entry into a home. The AP story quotes Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote in 1980 that the “physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.”

AP described how federal immigration officers have adapted to those limits by making arrests in public when possible, often requiring surveillance outside homes until someone exits. The report also includes an account from Fernando Perez, who told AP that immigration officers had stopped by his home numerous times since he came to the United States about 30 years ago from Mexico, but that he never answered the door.

Perez, speaking in a mix of English and Spanish in a Home Depot parking lot where he said he has sought work as a day laborer, said, “There are rules and I know them.” He added that if officers were to start coming into his home, where he said he pays rent, “that’s the last straw.”

AP said it witnessed an episode in Minneapolis on Jan. 11 in which ICE officers rammed through the front door of a Liberian man’s home using only an administrative warrant. The officers, the report said, were in heavy tactical gear with rifles drawn.

The AP report also said Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut is demanding congressional hearings on the ICE memo and is calling on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for an explanation. In a news release, Blumenthal said, “Every American should be terrified by this secret ICE policy authorizing its agents to kick down your door and storm into your home.”

In communities, AP said know-your-rights training has emphasized that residents should not open the door unless they are shown a warrant signed by a judge. The AP story includes comments from Ahilan Arulanantham, co-faculty director of the UCLA Law School’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy, who called the memo “quite disturbing” and said the advice has been included in know-your-rights trainings for decades.

Arulanantham said the trainings teach people to ask officers to “slide the warrant under the door so they can see if it was signed by a judge or is an administrative warrant.” The AP report also says that in Santa Ana, California, Jesus Delgado, a father of three, said a local elementary school sent out bulletins telling parents to not answer the door and to not answer questions if ICE comes.

Delgado told AP, “They send us bulletins, to not answer the door, to not answer any questions.” AP also reported that another man said he learned the advice from TikTok, and that Tom Homan, described in the report as Trump’s border czar, has criticized groups providing the information—telling CNN last year that “They call it ‘know-your-rights,’” and that he called it “how to escape arrest.”

AP said the memo directs officers that they must first knock, identify themselves, and explain why they are at a residence. It said the memo limits entry to between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., and requires that people inside be given a “reasonable chance to act lawfully.” The report said that if knocking and those steps do not work, the memo states officers can use force to enter.

Law enforcement and legal experts quoted in the AP report warned that barging into homes could increase danger for both residents and officers, including in states with stand-your-ground laws. Arulanantham said the change would follow what he described as a path of increasingly aggressive tactics, saying this would be “another step down that path” and noting that it would be “obviously” more significant because “it suggests you’re not safe even in your own house.”