ICE Memo Allowing Warrantless Home Entry Sparks Alarm Over Civil Liberties and Community Safety

The newly revealed Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo authorizing officers to enter homes without a judicial warrant represents a dangerous expansion of federal power that threatens the basic protections people rely on to feel safe in their own homes. Constitutional scholars and immigration experts say the directive strips away long-standing limits rooted in the Fourth Amendment, allowing ICE to bypass judges and act with minimal oversight in communities already living under intense fear.

Mark Graber, a constitutional law professor at the University of Maryland, framed the move as an erosion of foundational rights. “The Bill of Rights, we thought, were the first 10 amendments,” he said. “I guess now we’re down to nine.” His comment reflects alarm that protections against warrantless home entry, principles that predate the nation itself, are being casually discarded.

Traditionally, ICE arrests rely on either judicial warrants signed by judges or administrative warrants signed within the executive branch. Only the former allow entry into private homes. 

The May 2025 memo, revealed through a whistleblower complaint, authorizes officers to force entry using administrative warrants alone, effectively cutting judges out of the process. Emmanuel Mauleón, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota, compared the practice to officers issuing their own permission slips. “It would essentially be the same as if… the police officer that is both collecting the evidence and arresting you then goes and types up his own warrant to search your house,” he said.

Mauleón warned that the change removes meaningful checks. “It’s deeply concerning, because there’s absolutely no safeguards and no accountability built into the system,” he said. He described the memo as more than a gradual weakening of rights, calling it “crossing the Rubicon” and declaring that protections courts have long recognized “just don’t apply to DHS and to immigration stops.”

While the Department of Homeland Security claims those targeted already had “full due process and a final order of removal,” the administration’s own data shows many removal orders are issued in absentia. The memo’s quiet rollout, sometimes shared only verbally, has further fueled distrust. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said “every American” should be “outraged by this assault on freedom and privacy.”

Despite claims this is “not a green light to randomly kick down doors,” the directive follows months of aggressive tactics. As Kathleen Bush-Joseph of the Migration Policy Institute put it, the administration is “pushing so many legal boundaries,” empowering ICE in ways that terrorize communities rather than protect them.

Link: CNN