ICE Thugs Trashing Constitutional Rights, Cont.

 

The domestic terrorist thugs known as ICE/ DHS have been given a fig leaf of legality by the courts their own acting director to break into people's houses without a warrant signed by a judge.  It's Gestapo time in America:

Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press, marking a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.

The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities.

The shift comes as the Trump administration dramatically expands immigration arrests nationwide, deploying thousands of officers under a mass deportation campaign that is already reshaping enforcement tactics in cities such as Minneapolis.

For years, immigrant advocates, legal aid groups and local governments have urged people not to open their doors to immigration agents unless they are shown a warrant signed by a judge. That guidance is rooted in Supreme Court rulings that generally prohibit law enforcement from entering a home without judicial approval. The ICE directive directly undercuts that advice at a time when arrests are accelerating under the administration’s immigration crackdown.

The memo itself has not been widely shared within the agency, according to a whistleblower complaint, but its contents have been used to train new ICE officers who are being deployed into cities and towns to implement the president’s immigration crackdown. New ICE hires and those still in training are being told to follow the memo’s guidance instead of written training materials that actually contradict the memo, according to the whistleblower disclosure.  

Golly, what might that written training material that's being superseded by ICE leadership be relying on?  Oh, right:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."  Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Also, due process be damned!  Continuing --

The change is almost certain to meet legal challenges and stiff criticism from advocacy groups and immigrant-friendly state and local governments that have spent years successfully urging people not to open their doors unless ICE shows them a warrant signed by a judge.

The Associated Press obtained the memo and whistleblower complaint from an official in Congress, who shared it on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive documents. The AP verified the authenticity of the accounts in the complaint.

The memo, signed by the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, and dated May 12, 2025, says: “Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of the General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose.”

We'd like to see Founding Fascist Lyons and his leaders "Border Barbie" Noem and "Peewee Goebbels" Miller defend that interpretation of the Constitution and precedent in any court of law (well, at least up to the Republican Supreme Court, where Justice Rapey Beer Bong has said ICE can profile by appearance and language in making arrests).  It's clear from the top down in this regime that the Constitution is, at best, advisory, and that the power of the state (vested in the perfectly sane hands of the Malignant Fascist and his proxy Peewee Goebbels) has primacy.

BONUS:  The bastards are even detaining a 5- year- old and his father, and taking them from Minnesota to a detention facility in Texas. 

(Photo:  heavily-armed domestic terrorists enter Minneapolis home after breaking down door / John Locher, AP)