ICE’s actions are gutting the Fourth Amendment

IT'S OFFICIAL: ICE is trying to destroy the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the one that protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures in our homes and guarantees that“no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause”.

- NOAH FELDMAN

According to an internal memo that was leaked to the media, Immigration and Customs Enforcement claims that its agents can break down your door and enter your home without a judicial warrant, based solely on an agent’s belief that an undocumented person lives there.This violates the most essential protection of the Fourth Amendment: The government can’t force its way into your home unless an independent judge says there is probable cause of a crime.

To be absolutely clear, an ICE agent isn’t an independent judge capable of issuing a Fourth Amendment warrant any more than your local police officer would be. What these agents produce are “administrative warrants”, documents signed by the agents themselves and not presented to an independent third-party judge. Such warrants are restricted to the enforcement of civil matters, not criminal law, and no court has ever held that an administrative warrant allows officers to forcibly enter a home.