This law is a death sentence for ICE agents — and Republicans love it

The Fourth Amendment protects you from tyranny. It protects you from government agents busting down your door without probable cause. It says you are secure in your home “against unreasonable searches and seizures,” which means no warrants shall issue without “probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation.”

The Fourth Amendment didn’t materialize in a vacuum, but was the pained outcome of a despotic King’s overreach that brutalized early American colonists. It sprang from British officials using “general warrants,” or “Writs of Assistance” they ginned up themselves to search and seize colonists and their property whenever they got the urge.

Such “writs” gave officials unfettered power to violate anyone in their crosshairs. Like Trump’s immigration enforcement raids, “Writs of Assistance” were ostensibly aimed at enforcing the law — today it’s immigration, then it was smuggling — but quickly morphed into government brutality.

Colonists grew enraged as they watched British officials ransack the homes and businesses of their neighbors searching for “smuggled goods without specific evidence.” Community outrage spread across state lines and eventually became the Bill of Rights. Over 250 years later, the Fourth Amendment requirement of a judge’s signed warrant of probable cause remains the lynchpin of our criminal justice system.

ICE thinks it can issue its own warrants

That 250-year-old requirement is apparently news to ICE. Last week, a whistleblower disclosed an internal Department of Homeland Security memo advising federal ICE agents that they have unlimited power to enter people’s homes — by force — without a judge’s signed warrant.

On Jan. 21, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent an internal ICE memo and whistleblower complaint to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. The memo authorizes ICE agents to rely only on administrative warrants, rather than judges’ warrants, to bust into peoples’ homes.

The whistleblower complaint does more than allege — it attaches a written memo dated May 12, 2025, signed by Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, authorizing ICE agents to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judicial warrant, consent, or an emergency. In Exhibit 1 attached to the complaint, Lyons directs ICE agents to use Form I-205, Warrants for Removal, in order to enter places of residence.

Form I-205 warrants are administrative warrants signed only by ICE officials, not judges.

The complaint also details the steps ICE has taken to hide the directive. Because it is blatantly illegal, DHS allows the memo to be read only in person; it was disseminated to select DHS officials who were directed to read it and return it to their supervisors. Newly hired ICE agents are also instructed to “disregard any written training material” that contradicts instructors’ verbal directives.

Surely White House Deputy Chief of Staff and anti-immigration zealot Stephen Miller knows his warrantless directives could trigger more violence under Stand your Ground laws.

Breaking down doors

The Framers liked to say “a man’s house is his castle.” A phrase that’s been around since the 17th century, the “castle doctrine” is a foundational pillar of both the Fourth Amendment and Stand Your Ground laws now in effect in over 31 states.

Such legislation varies by state, but overall, in cases of self-defense, such laws remove the legal duty to retreat before using force, including deadly force. In the 1980s, states enacted similar "Make My Day" laws to provide immunity from prosecution for individuals who use deadly force against someone who unlawfully enters their residence.

It comes as no surprise that Republicans in general, and the National Rifle Association in specific, were aggressive proponents of such laws. As long as the person invoking the defense is in a place they have a legal right to be, if someone busts into their home illegally and they reasonably feel their life is in danger, they may be able to shoot first and ask questions later.

Making ICE agents sitting ducks

How those laws will play out between ICE agents and immigrants with valid visas, green cards, or specific legal statuses — in other words, people who have the legal right to be in their homes, is not yet known. But just as it was only a matter of time before ill-trained ICE agents shot innocent people on the streets, it’s only a matter of time before frightened victims shoot first when masked agents with flash bangs bust into their homes.

At least one state attorney general has come under fire for suggesting that Stand Your Ground laws could apply in these situations. But now that the whole world has watched ICE murder people, and everyone knows that people in ICE custody are dying in record numbers, even Trump must understand that people will reasonably fear for their lives when masked agents bust down their door.

It’s clear Trump and Miller are setting us up for accelerating violence. Pitting warrantless ICE home entries against Stand Your Ground laws presents another unwanted question of law that will only be settled after someone else needlessly dies.

DHS is putting ICE agents squarely at risk by ordering them into homes without legal warrants. They surely know that people in Stand Your Ground homes will be triggered, and that, sooner or later, victims will start shooting. No one, except an authoritarian who thinks more violence will lead to more power, wants to see that.

DHS needs to rescind the memo immediately and revert to legally issued warrants to save its own officers’ lives.

• Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.