ICE officers can assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge's warrant, internal memo says

Federal immigration officers are being given the sweeping power to forcibly enter people's homes without a judge's warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The directive was revealed as the Trump administration prepares to ramp up immigration enforcement in Maine, part of its expansion of immigration arrests nationwide. Thousands of officers have been deployed under a mass deportation campaign that is already reshaping enforcement tactics in cities such as Minneapolis.

For years, immigrant advocates, legal aid groups and local governments have urged people not to open their doors to immigration agents unless they are shown a warrant signed by a judge. 

That guidance is rooted in Supreme Court rulings that generally prohibit law enforcement from entering a home without judicial approval. The ICE directive directly undercuts that advice at a time when arrests are accelerating under the administration's immigration crackdown.

The Associated Press obtained the memo and whistleblower complaint from an official in Congress, who shared it on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive documents. AP verified the authenticity of the accounts in the complaint.

The memo itself has not been widely shared within the agency, according to the whistleblower complaint, but its contents have been used to train new ICE officers who are being deployed into cities and towns to implement U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. 

New ICE hires and those still in training are being told to follow the memo's guidance instead of written training materials that actually contradict the memo, according to the whistleblower disclosure. 

It is unclear how broadly the directive has been applied in immigration enforcement operations. 

The memo, signed by the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, and dated May 12, 2025, says: "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 the General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose."

The memo does not detail how that determination was made nor what its legal repercussions might be. 

When asked about the memo, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press that everyone the department serves with an administrative warrant has already had "full due process and a final order of removal."

She said the officers issuing those warrants have also found probable cause for the person's arrest. She said the Supreme Court and Congress have "recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement," without elaborating. 

McLaughlin did not respond to questions about whether ICE officers entered a person's home since the memo was issued relying solely on an administrative warrant and if so, how often.

The Trump administration is now targeting its mass deportation campaign on Maine, a state with relatively few residents in the U.S. illegally but with a notable presence of African refugees in its largest cities.