As the Trump administration ramps up immigration enforcement nationwide, a wave of high-profile arrests — many taking place at private homes and businesses and captured on video — has thrust a legal question into the center of the national debate: When can federal immigration agents legally enter private property to make an arrest?
That question has taken on new urgency in cities like Minneapolis, where thousands of federal agents are operating in the streets amid protests, clashes and a fatal shooting, the sharp scrutiny of the legal authority immigration officers rely on when they arrive at the front door.
At the heart of the debate is a legal distinction largely unknown to the public but essential to immigration law enforcement.
Most immigration arrests are made based on administrative warrants, internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest of a specific person but do not allow officers to forcibly enter private homes or other non-public spaces without consent. Only criminal warrants signed by judges carry this authority. Legal experts say the aggressive force of law enforcement combined with public awareness of these limits is increasingly turning door-to-door meetings into flashpoints, fueling the confrontations now taking place in cities across the country.
Here’s what you need to know about the limitations of the warrants that authorize most immigration-related arrests.
Immigration warrants usually do not authorize entry onto private property
All law enforcement operations – including those conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection – are governed by the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects all people in the country from unreasonable searches and seizures. This means law enforcement must have a warrant before searching private property or arresting anyone, regardless of immigration status.
But not all mandates are the same. Typically, arrests made by Department of Homeland Security agencies are authorized by administrative warrants — sometimes known as immigration warrants — not judicial warrants.
Warrants are issued by a court and signed by a magistrate or a state or federal judge. These warrants allow a relevant law enforcement agency to detain a specified person in any context – whether the person is on public or private property. In other words, law enforcement officers are allowed to enter and search a home or business to make an arrest without the property owner’s consent once a judge signs off on the arrest.
In contrast, administrative warrants used in most immigration operations are sanctioned by an immigration agency, officer, or judge and do not allow law enforcement to forcibly enter private property to detain someone.
That means people can legally deny federal immigration agents entry to private property if the agents have only an administrative warrant.
There are limited exceptions, some of which include if someone is in immediate danger, an officer is actively pursuing a suspect, or someone calls for help inside the residence. But those exceptions don’t apply to routine immigration arrests, legal experts say.
John Sandweg, former ICE acting director, said officers are trained on the circumstances that legally justify forcible entry. But as ICE’s scope of work has expanded and more Border Patrol agents have begun doing the work of ICE officers, there’s a greater chance that agents will misapply the rules, he said.
“Your risks for all of these types of incidents increase dramatically when you take officers out of their normal operating environment and ask them to do things they haven’t been trained to do because it’s not part of their core missions,” Sandweg said.
Tensions rising in Minneapolis
The thorny legal distinction between judicial and administrative warrants came to the fore Sunday when immigration law enforcement raided a private home to make an arrest in Minneapolis after clashing with protesters who clashed with heavily armed agents. Documents reviewed by The Associated Press revealed that the agents had only an administrative warrant, meaning there was no judge to authorize the raid on private property.
When asked, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin did not provide a legal justification for the forcible entry and arrest of the man, who is a Liberian citizen with a deportation order in 2023. She said his arrest was part of the administration’s efforts to arrest “the worst of the worst” and added that he had a criminal record including “robbery, possession, possession, possession of drugs”. malicious destruction and theft’.
McLaughlin did not say if he was convicted of any of those crimes or if his arrest was related to any criminal activity.
Vice President of Policy at the National Immigration Law Center, Heidi Altman, said she could not comment on this specific raid, but said that in general, an officer entering a home without consent or permission could have serious consequences.
“This is not just an illegal arrest. There are numerous illegal actions by the officer themselves that could open up liability, not just to be sued, but potential criminal action under state law,” she explained.
But in the current political climate, Altman said, it’s unclear whether there are realistic avenues of accountability, since the federal government would be responsible for investigating such a breach.
“There are layers of federal laws, regulations and policies that prohibit this type of behavior. But then the second layer is: Will the federal government impose consequences?” she said.
In addition, immigrants have less recourse after an illegal arrest or search because illegally obtained evidence can still be used in immigration court. It’s called the exclusionary rule, Altman explained, and the consequences the officer may face would not negate the immediate consequences immigrants could face if they are quickly deported.
“As those legal challenges come and people face very, very quick detentions and deportations based on these illegal arrests, there’s very little recourse in actual immigration court proceedings that allows people to force a judge to ignore the evidence or the actual arrest, even if it was done in this very violent, illegal way,” Altman said.
“Know Your Rights” campaigns.
ICE has long relied on “knocks and talks” to make apprehensions, informally asking residents to leave a home without giving any indication that they intend to make an immigration arrest. As outlined in a 2020 lawsuit in which a federal judge ruled the practice illegal, officers tell targets they need to step outside to answer a few questions. In one case, they told a woman they were probation officers looking for her brother.
In response, activists, lawyers and local governments have launched “know your rights” campaigns across the country, trying to educate people about the legal nuances of the highly complicated legal framework that should govern immigration enforcement.
Many groups have posted fact sheets and infographics on social media, while others are facilitating meetings that look at the constitutional protections immigrants — regardless of legal status — have in interactions with federal agents.
Often the groups will instruct immigrants to ask to see a warrant before opening the door if an immigration officer knocks. The courses also typically emphasize that an immigrant can refuse to open the door if law enforcement has only an administrative warrant.