ICE memo OKs forcible entry without warrant

What happened

The Trump administration is asserting sweeping new powers to forcibly enter people’s homes without a criminal warrant signed by a judge, The Associated Press first reported Wednesday, citing current and former ICE officials and a memo leaked by two whistleblowers. The secret memo, signed last May by acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, said Department of Homeland Security lawyers had “recently determined” that agents could enter private homes with just an internal administrative warrant.

Who said what

DHS’s new policy “is a complete break from the law and undercuts the Fourth Amendment and the rights it protects,” said Whistleblower Aid, the organization representing the two government officials. DHS and ICE leaders “didn’t publicize or broadly distribute the legal decision, predicting that it would invite legal scrutiny,” The Wall Street Journal said. But according to the whistleblowers, the AP said, new ICE hires “are being told to follow the memo’s guidance instead of written training materials that actually contradict the memo.”

Lawyers and advocates have “documented cases of agents breaking down people’s doors to arrest them without a warrant” in Minnesota and other cities targeted by ICE, the Journal said. In the “most prominent” case, ICE agents rammed through the door of a Liberian man, Garrison Gibson, though a federal judge found his subsequent arrest “unlawful in part because of the lack of a judicial warrant.”

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What next?

The new policy is “almost certain to meet legal challenges,” the AP said. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the migrants targeted under the new policy “have had full due process and a final order of removal from an immigration judge.” But “unlike most judges,” who independently determine whether there is probable cause a crime was committed before signing a warrant, immigration judges “are Justice Department employees who must follow the orders of political appointees,” the Journal said.