As the Trump administration steps up immigration enforcement nationwide, a wave of high-profile arrests — many taking place at private homes and businesses and captured on video — has pushed one legal question to 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, confrontations and a deadly shooting, heightening scrutiny of the legal authority that immigration officials rely on when they arrive at the front door.
At the heart of the debate is a legal distinction largely unfamiliar to the public but central to immigration enforcement.
Most immigration arrests are made under administrative warrants, internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest of a specific individual but do not allow officers to forcibly enter private homes or other non-public spaces without consent. Only criminal warrants signed by judges have that authority. Legal experts say the administration’s aggressive enforcement push, along with public awareness of those limits, are increasingly turning door-knocking meetings into flashpoints, sparking confrontations that are now taking place in cities across the country.
Here’s what you need to know about the limitations on the warrants that authorize most immigration-related arrests.
Immigration warrants typically do not authorize entry into 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 United States Constitution, which protects all people in the country from unreasonable searches and seizures. This means that law enforcement is required to have a warrant before searching their private property or arresting someone, 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.
Judicial warrants are issued by a court and signed by a state or federal magistrate or judge. These warrants allow a relevant law enforcement agency to apprehend a specified individual in any context — regardless of whether the person is on public or private property. In other words, law enforcement is legally 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, the 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.
This means that people can legally refuse federal immigration agents entry onto private property if the agents only have 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 if someone is calling for help inside the residence. But those exceptions don’t apply in routine immigration arrests, legal experts say.
John Sandweg, former ICE director, said officers are trained in what circumstances legally justify forced entry. But as the scope of ICE’s work has expanded, and more Border Patrol agents have begun to perform the work of ICE officers, there is a greater chance that agents will apply the rules incorrectly, he said.
“Your risks of all these types of incidents increase dramatically when you take officers out of their normal operating environment and ask them to do things that they haven’t been trained to do, because it’s not part of their core missions,” Sandweg said.
Rising tensions 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 confronted heavily armed agents. Documents reviewed by The Associated Press revealed that the agents had only an administrative warrant — meaning there was no judge who authorized the raid on private property.
When asked, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin did not provide legal justification for the forcible entry and arrest of the man, who is a Liberian citizen with a 2023 deportation order. 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 history including “theft, drug possession, drug possession, drug possession, drug possession, malicious destruction and theft”.
McLaughlin did not specify if he had been convicted of any of those crimes, or if his arrest was related to any criminal activity.
The Vice President of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, Heidi Altman, said she could not comment on that specific raid, but said that generally an officer entering a home without consent or permission could result in serious consequences.
“This is not only an illegal arrest. They are many illegal actions by the officer himself that can open the responsibility, not only for being prosecuted, but potential criminal actions under the law of the state as well,” she explained.
But in the current political climate, Altman said, it is unclear whether there are any realistic avenues for accountability since the federal government would be responsible for investigating such violations.
“There are layers of federal laws and regulations and policies that prohibit this kind 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, since illegally obtained evidence can still be used in immigration court. This is called the exclusionary rule, Altman explained, and the consequences the officer may face do not negate the immediate consequences immigrants may face if they are quickly deported.
“As those legal challenges come and people are facing detentions and deportations very quickly based on these illegal arrests, there is very little recourse in current immigration court proceedings that allow people to have a judge ignore the evidence or the actual arrest, even if it was done in this very violent and illegal way,” Altman said.
‘Know your rights’ campaigns
ICE has been relying on “knock and talks” to make apprehensions, and has informally asked residents to leave a home without giving any indication that they plan to make an immigration arrest. As described in a 2020 lawsuit in which a federal judge found the practice illegal, officers tell their targets they need them to come forward to answer a few questions. In one case, they told a woman that 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 extremely convoluted legal framework that is supposed to govern immigration law enforcement.
Several groups have posted fact sheets and infographics on social media, while others are facilitating meetings that go over the constitutional protections immigrants — regardless of legal status — have in interactions with federal agents.
Often the gangs instruct immigrants to ask to see a warrant before opening the door if an immigration officer knocks. The training also typically emphasizes that an immigrant can refuse to open the door if law enforcement only has an administrative warrant.