ICE Enforcement and Civil Liberties

An internal ICE memo dated May 2025 and signed by Acting Director Todd Lyons asserts that officers may rely on administrative immigration warrants — without a judge‑signed judicial warrant — to enter residences, authorizes the use of the "necessary and reasonable" force after knocking and identifying themselves (operations between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.), and has been used in training and operationalized in incidents such as a Jan. 11 Minneapolis entry where agents rammed a door. Whistleblowers and legal advocates call the policy a flagrant Fourth Amendment violation and lawmakers including Sen. Richard Blumenthal are demanding hearings, while DHS says affected individuals have due process and that administrative-warrant issuers found probable cause.