This sponsored column is by Law Office of James Montana PLLC. All questions about it should be directed to James Montana, Esq., Janice Chen, Esq., and Victoria Khaydar, Esq., practicing attorneys at The Law Office of James Montana PLLC, an immigration-focused law firm located in Falls Church, Virginia. The legal information given here is general in nature. If you want legal advice, contact us for an appointment.
For years, we have told immigrants what any lawyer would: If the police knock on your door, you should not open the door unless the police present a valid warrant. A valid warrant means a warrant issued by an independent magistrate – a judge, not an executive branch official. This is a critical check on the power of the executive branch.
ICE seems to disagree. According to an extremely well-sourced set of whistleblowers, the Acting ICE Director, Todd Lyons, issued a memo stating that administrative warrants may be used to enter homes by force in order to effect an arrest. Here is the text of the leaked memorandum, in relevant part. (Our highlights are in bold below.)
Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the immigration (sic) and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations (sic) do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose. Accordingly, in light of this legal determination, ICE immigration officers may arrest and detain aliens subject to a final order of removal issued by an immigration judge, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), or a U.S. district court judge or magistrate judge in their place of residence. […]Before entering a residence pursuant to Form I-205, ICE officers and agents must “knock and announce.” In announcing, officers and agents must state their identity and purpose. Following announcement, officers and agents must allow those inside the residence a reasonable chance to act lawfully. Should the alien refuse admittance, ICE officers and agents should use only a necessary and reasonable amount of force to enter the alien’s residence, following proper notification of the officer’s or agent’s authority and intent to enter. ICE officers and agents must not effectuate an arrest in a third-party residence without consent, exigency, or a judicial warrant to enter the third-party residence.
This is a breathtaking memorandum. The Fourth Amendment protects everyone – not just citizens – in this country from lawless searches and seizures. Under the law, a search or seizure is unreasonable if you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area searched, or the items seized. The home is a place in which we have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That reasonable expectation applies to the immigration context. The Congressional Research Service considered the question in June 2025, and reported, quite accurately, that is a matter of settled law.
The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center continues to report (read it before they take it down!) that ICE can’t knock down your door to effect an arrest without consent. Don’t take my word for it; read it for yourselves:
Legal Instructor: So John, what are the differences between a criminal warrant issued by a federal court and a removal warrant issued by an ICE official?
Senior Legal Instructor: Jenna, the primary difference is that, unlike a criminal warrant issued by the federal court, a removal warrant does not authorize the ICE officer to enter into an REP area to execute the warrant.
Legal Instructor: So, what does that mean to an ICE officer who goes out to execute an ICE administrative removal warrant?
Senior Legal Instructor: Basically, what this means is that the ICE officer has the authority to arrest the person named in the warrant, so long as the officer locates the person in a public, non-REP, location. For example, the person is located walking down a public sidewalk.
Legal Instructor: Well, what would happen if the ICE officer locates the person in an REP area, such as his or her home?
Senior Legal Instructor: Well, in that case the administrative removal warrant authorizes the ICE officer to arrest the subject, but not to enter into an REP area such as his or her home unless consent to enter is given. If the officer does not have consent to enter, even if the officer knows the person subject to the warrant is inside the home, the officer has no legal authority to enter the home pursuant to that removal warrant.
If the whistleblower is right – and I see no reason not to believe him or her – then ICE is wrong, and ICE ought to know better.
There’s more to worry about here. The assertion that ICE can knock down your door with an administrative warrant that they themselves issued is bad enough. The whistleblowers tell us, though, that ICE has instructed its agents and officials to treat the memorandum with ‘unusually strict access control’ – in other words, read this, but don’t share it, and don’t keep a copy.
The government has a monopoly of force, and rightly so, but that monopoly is restrained by the law. In order to apply force to effect an arrest in a home, the government has to obtain a warrant from a neutral magistrate. ICE should not tell its officers to ignore the law in order to effectuate arrests. Doing so undermines its mission of upholding the law, which is its stated mission.
Our advice remains the same. Do not comply with administrative warrants. If you open the door, you consent to entry. If you are presented with a warrant signed by a federal district court judge or a state court judge, of course you should comply.
As always, we are happy to answer questions from readers as best we can.
