By Michelle Hackman and Jack Morphet
The Trump administration is asserting new powers to forcibly enter the homes of immigrants they are hoping to arrest without a criminal warrant signed by a judge, according to people familiar with the matter, including current and former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
Over the summer, lawyers at ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, penned a secret memo expanding the authority by which agents may enter homes of immigrants with final deportation orders, the people said.
Under the new legal basis, an administrative warrant showing the government has probable cause to believe a person is in the country illegally serves as enough of a basis to force entry. Administrative warrants are documents laying out ICE's basis to make an arrest, but they have traditionally carried significantly less authority than warrants signed by a judge who has independently evaluated the underlying evidence.
For decades, immigration officials haven't had the authority to search a person's home without a judicial warrant, on the theory that such a move would violate the immigrants' Fourth Amendment right to protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
In a statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokeswoman, said people targeted under the new policy "have had full due process and a final order of removal from an immigration judge."
Immigration judges, unlike most judges, are Justice Department employees who must follow the orders of political appointees.
If continued, the policy shift could prove a potent tool for the administration in its continuing push to enact President Trump's promise of a mass deportation.
The Associated Press earlier reported on the memo, and reported on a related whistleblower complaint. The whistleblower alleged ICE was training officers to follow the new guidance rather than written materials instructing them on the old set of rules, the AP reported.
Immigrant advocates and legal aid groups have advised immigrants not to open their doors for immigration agents without judicial warrants. Groups around the country hosted know-your-rights workshops for immigrants soon after Trump took office last year, a tactic that led officials such as Tom Homan, the White House border czar, to complain that they amounted to organized opposition obstructing immigration enforcement.
"I've seen many pamphlets from the NGOs, 'here's how you escape ICE,'" Homan told CNN last year. "They tell you how to hide from ICE. Don't open your door, don't answer questions."
DHS and ICE officials didn't publicize or broadly distribute the legal decision, predicting that it would invite legal scrutiny, the people familiar with the matter said. Last summer, soon after the memo was issued, they launched a pilot program to try it out in Minnesota -- for reasons unrelated to the current ICE surge there, the people said.
Immigration lawyers and advocates in Minnesota have documented cases of agents breaking down people's doors to arrest them without a warrant. The most prominent of those cases concerned a Minnesota man born in Liberia, Garrison Gibson, whose Fourth Amendment right was violated by ICE officers when they broke down his door without his consent and without a judicial warrant, according to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan.
Gibson was issued deportation orders in 2009 but was allowed to remain in the U.S. under ICE supervision, including wearing an ankle monitor and regularly checking in with immigration officials. His most recent check-in with ICE was Dec. 29, 2025, according to court documents.
On Jan. 11, immigration officers forced their way into Gibson's home and took him into custody. They told his wife that they had a warrant but didn't produce a judicial warrant, according to the documents.
Gibson came to the U.S. when he was 6, according to his lawyer, Marc Prokosch. In Judge Bryan's judgment ordering his release, he wrote that Gibson doesn't have a criminal record and claimed he wasn't told why he was arrested. The judge found the detention unlawful in part because of the lack of a judicial warrant.
Prokosch said the new policy to allow ICE agents to forcibly enter homes without a judicial warrant "goes against everything the United States has stood for for 250 years," and was at odds with the value that "your home is your castle."
Write to Michelle Hackman at michelle.hackman@wsj.com and Jack Morphet at jack.morphet@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 21, 2026 20:58 ET (01:58 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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