(AP) — As the administration of President Donald Trump intensifies immigration raids across the United States, a wave of highly consequential arrests — many inside homes and private businesses, and captured on video — has placed a legal question at the center of the national debate: When can federal immigration agents legally enter private property to make an arrest?
That question has gained new urgency in cities like Minneapolis, where thousands of federal agents are patrolling the streets amid protests, clashes and a fatal shooting, sharpening scrutiny of the legal authority behind immigration agents when they arrive at the doorstep of the places they intend to arrest at.
At the heart of the debate is a largely unfamiliar legal distinction, but one that is fundamental to enforcing immigration laws.
The vast majority of immigration arrests are carried out under administrative warrants — internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest of a specific individual but do not permit agents to forcibly enter homes or other private spaces without the consent of those inside. Only judicial warrants signed by judges carry that authority. Legal experts say that the government’s aggressive immigration crackdown, combined with public awareness of those limits, is turning more and more moments of detention into flashpoints, fueling confrontations that are now playing out in cities across the country.
This is what you need to know about the limits of the warrants that authorize most immigration-related arrests.
All law enforcement operations — including those carried out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — are governed by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects everyone in the country from unreasonable searches and seizures. That means immigration authorities must have a warrant to search a private property or to arrest someone, regardless of their immigration status.
But not all warrants are created equal. Typically, arrests carried out by agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are authorized by administrative warrants — sometimes known as immigration warrants — rather than by judicial warrants.
Judicial warrants are issued by a court and signed by a trial judge or a state or federal judge. These warrants allow a law enforcement agency to seize a specific individual in any context, whether the person is on public or private property. In other words, once a judge approves the arrest, authorities may enter and search a home or business to arrest someone without the owner’s consent.
By contrast, administrative warrants used in most immigration operations are sanctioned by an immigration agency, officer or immigration judge, and do not permit law enforcement to forcibly enter private property to detain someone.
That means people can legally refuse entry to federal immigration agents if the agents only have an administrative warrant.
There are limited exceptions, some of which include if someone is in immediate danger, an agent is actively pursuing a suspect, or someone is asking for help inside the residence. But those exceptions do not apply to routine immigration arrests, legal experts say.
John Sandweg, the former acting director of ICE, said agents are trained on what circumstances legally justify entering by force. But as the agency’s scope has expanded, and more Border Patrol agents have begun taking on ICE duties, there is a greater likelihood that agents will misapply the rules, he noted.
“The risks of all these kinds of incidents rise dramatically when you take agents out of their normal operating environment and ask them to do things they’ve not been trained for, because it isn’t part of their core missions,” Sandweg said.
The thorny legal distinction between judicial and administrative warrants became evident on Sunday, when immigration agents raided a private home in Minneapolis to make an arrest after clashing with protesters who confronted the heavily armed agents. Documents reviewed by The Associated Press showed that the agents only had an administrative warrant, meaning no judge had authorized the raid on private property.
When asked about it, DHS Deputy Secretary Tricia McLaughlin did not provide a legal justification for the forced entry and arrest of the man, who is a Liberian citizen with a 2023 deportation order. She said the arrest is part of the government’s effort to arrest “the worst of the worst,” and added that he had a criminal history that included “robbery, possession of drugs with intent to sell, possession of a deadly weapon, malicious destruction and theft.”
McLaughlin did not specify whether he was convicted of any of those crimes, nor whether his arrest was connected to any specific criminal activity.
Heidi Altman, policy vice president at the National Immigration Law Center — a leading immigrant advocacy group — said she could not comment on that particular raid, but noted that generally, the entry into a home without consent or permission could have serious consequences.
“That’s not just an illegal arrest. There are numerous illegal actions by the agent themselves that could expose them to liability, not only in a civil suit but also potentially under state criminal law,” Altman explained.
But in today’s political climate, Altman observed, it’s unclear whether there are realistic accountability pathways, since the federal government would be responsible for investigating such violations.
“There are layers of federal laws, regulations and policies that prohibit this kind of behavior. But then the second layer is: Will the federal government impose consequences?” she asked.
In addition, immigrants face fewer resources after an illegal arrest or entry, since illegally obtained evidence can still be used in immigration court. The exclusionary rule — which would bar such evidence in criminal court — typically does not apply in immigration court, Altman explained. Any consequences for the agent would likely not reverse the immediate consequences that migrants may face if they are deported quickly after an unlawful arrest.
“As those legal challenges arise and people confront detentions and deportations that happen very, very quickly on the basis of these illegal arrests, there are very few resources in immigration court proceedings to have a judge throw out the evidence or the arrest itself, even if it was conducted in a violent and illegal manner,” Altman pointed out.
For some time the ICE has relied on the practice of “knock, then talk” to effect detentions, informally asking residents to come outside the home without indicating that an immigration arrest is planned. As described in a 2020 lawsuit in which a federal judge ruled that practice illegal, officers told victims that they needed to come out to answer questions. In one case, they said they were probation officers seeking a relative.
In response, activists, lawyers and local governments have launched Know Your Rights campaigns nationwide, in an effort to educate people about the nuances of the complicated legal framework that is supposed to govern immigration enforcement.
Many groups have published fact sheets and infographics on social media, while others facilitate meetings that review the constitutional protections that immigrants — regardless of status — have when interacting with federal agents.
Often, groups instruct immigrants to request to see a warrant before opening the door if an immigration agent knocks. Training also typically emphasizes that an immigrant may refuse to open the door if the authorities only have an administrative warrant.
