Eve is here. While we may be focused on President Trump’s Greenland whiplash, ICE abuses are only getting worse, as evidenced by the image below from the Common Dreams landing page. While we raise one article about the policy of intentional violation of the Fourth Amendment by entering homes without the necessary judicial warrant (or other legal justification, demanding circumstances), we also present short excerpts from two other articles that demonstrate escalating violations of the law: detainee homicides and transporting children across state lines.
In your humble blogger’s opinion, the most disturbing stories are those of ICE engaging in acts that amount to trespassing, with national implications, by entering homes without a judicial warrant. Before ICE started rampaging, I started watching videos by civil rights lawyers. It described techniques used by police officers to compel hapless citizens to sacrifice their rights during home visits, traffic stops, filming police and other government operations, and even during street encounters. Some basic rules include not answering any questions unless a lawyer is present, not allowing a lawyer into your home without a warrant, and even not allowing them to look inside your home. If they say they have it, slip it under the door or lean it against the window and ask them to see if it’s signed by the judge and what it says. Answering questions in a “knock and tell” format is considered consent and will be admissible in court. Letting the cops in is portrayed as consenting to the search. And be sure to let them know that you do not consent to the search and that you will only answer questions in the presence of your attorney. For an overview of what to do if non-insane police call you, see Hampton Law’s presentation, “5 Tips to Stop When the Police Come Knocking.”
I’m waiting for someone to shoot an ICE agent who breaks into a home under the state’s “stand tough” law. But they’ll likely be treated to Renee Good at more than twice the rate.
I encourage you to read the opening sections of two other important stories in their entirety. Let’s start with “ICE detainee’s death officially declared a homicide in autopsy report” by Common Dreams staff writer Julia Conley. It is important to note that the murder finding was made by the county medical examiner and not by a doctor hired by the relatives to provide an independent opinion.
The Department of Homeland Security issued deportation notices to two people who witnessed Gerardo Lunas Campos’ death, but a judge halted their deportations this week to allow for possible testimony.
The family of a man detained at Camp East Montana, a makeshift immigration detention facility in El Paso, Texas, is preparing to file a wrongful death lawsuit after an autopsy report officially says the cause of his death was a homicide.
“Based on the results of the investigation and examination, it is my opinion that the cause of death was asphyxia due to compression of the neck and torso,” El Paso County Deputy Medical Examiner Adam C. Gonzalez wrote in a report on the death of Gerardo Lunas Campos, 55. “The cause of death is homicide.”
Next, “Absolutely Vile” by Common Dreams staff writer Jake Johnson: ICE kidnaps young children from Minnesota schools and sends them to Texas:
Federal immigration agents have detained at least four children attending public schools in Minnesota in the past two weeks, including a 5-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl, both of whom were sent to a Texas detention center that has been criticized for grotesque conditions.
Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenbic held a press conference Wednesday to detail the targeting of children and denounce the menacing presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who, at the behest of President Donald Trump, have terrorized and abused communities in Minneapolis and other major U.S. cities.
“ICE agents were wandering around our neighborhood, going around schools, following buses, coming into parking lots, taking kids,” Stenvik said. “Our sense of safety in our communities and around our schools has been shaken and our hearts are broken.”
The police chief said ICE agents used 5-year-old Liam Ramos as a “bait” to arrest his father as well. The two were photographed in their driveway “just returning home” from kindergarten. The two are currently being held in a Texas jail.
And then to the main event, “The Fourth Amendment is literally there to prevent this”: Jessica Corbett’s “Memo claims ICE can forcibly enter homes without a judicial warrant.”
“The U.S. government is looking for ways to get around that pesky Fourth Amendment,” one investigative journalist said of an Associated Press report Wednesday about an internal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo that claims ICE agents can forcibly enter private residences without a judicial warrant, consent or emergency.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, homes, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrant shall be issued except upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly stating the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.”
“Historically, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not relied solely on administrative warrants to arrest aliens who are subject to final removal orders in their place of residence, but the DHS Office of General Counsel recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, Immigration and Nationality Act, and immigration regulations do not prohibit reliance on administrative warrants for this purpose,” said a May 12 memo from ICE, which is part of a whistleblower information obtained by The Associated Press.
The Jan. 7 disclosure was sent to the U.S. Senate by a whistleblower advocacy group that “keeps the whistleblower’s identity anonymous even to supervising investigators,” according to the document. The report notes that although the seemingly unconstitutional memo was addressed to “all ICE employees,” it “was not formally distributed to all ICE employees.”
Instead, it was “provided to selected DHS employees who were then instructed to provide a verbal explanation of the new course of action. These supervisors then showed the memo to some employees, like the customer, and instructed them to read the memo and return it to their supervisors,” the disclosure details. “Newly hired ICE agents, many of whom have no law enforcement experience, are now instructed to enter homes and make arrests relying solely on administrative warrants drafted and signed by ICE agents.”
Asked about the May 12 memorandum signed by Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told The Associated Press that everyone working for DHS with an administrative warrant has already received “full due process and a final order of removal,” and that the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress have “recognized the validity of administrative warrants in immigration cases.”
But as Whistleblower Assistance Senior Vice President and Special Counsel David Kligerman emphasized in a statement Wednesday, “no court has ever found that ICE agents have such legal authority to enter a home without a judicial warrant.”
“This administration’s secret policy encourages what the Supreme Court has identified as “the principal evil covered by the language of the Fourth Amendment,” namely, warrantless physical invasions,” he said. “This is exactly what the Fourth Amendment was created to prevent.”
“If ICE believes this policy is consistent with the law, why doesn’t it make it public?” we asked. “Perhaps they covered it up because they didn’t stand up to legal scrutiny. Policies that affect fundamental constitutional rights, especially those that the Supreme Court has made the most egalitarian in the Bill of Rights, should be openly discussed with the American people. You can’t undo policy memos by hiding them.”
Other lawyers, journalists and commentators responded similarly to the Associated Press report on social media. Alejandra Caraballo of Harvard Law’s Cyberlaw Clinic declared, “The Fourth Amendment literally exists to prevent this.”
“Remember when the Fourth Amendment still existed?” said Bradley P. Moss, a lawyer who specializes in litigation involving national security, federal employment, and confidentiality laws.
“For generations, it has been accepted that the only thing that allows agents to enter your home is a warrant signed by a judge. No wonder ICE hid this memo!” wrote Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.
“This is the Trump administration discarding the Fourth Amendment to pursue its goal of mass deportation,” he continued, highlighting a footnote suggesting that “they don’t even preclude authorizing home invasions without a judicial warrant against people who haven’t even been ordered to leave!”
“In short, this secret memo explains much of what we’ve seen in recent months, including the raid in Minneapolis where ICE agents did not present a judicial warrant before entering the door,” he said. “Actually, I was secretly told that I didn’t need them!”
Reichlin-Melnick shared photos of armed immigration agents using a battering ram to enter a home in Minneapolis and arrest a Liberian man, while federal agents recently broke down the door of a home in nearby St. Paul, Minn., and arrested Chongli “Scott” Tao, a U.S. citizen who was later released.
In a sign of how explosive ICE knew the secret memo would be, one whistleblower said it was only allowed to read the memo, not take notes, and warned that employees would be punished if they disagreed.
At least one ICE instructor quit without teaching. pic.twitter.com/VsDos3ISBw
— Aaron Reichlin Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) January 21, 2026
The Associated Press report and response to the leaked memo come as the Trump administration rushed immigration agents to Maine on Wednesday in an operation it dubbed “Operation Catch of the Day,” mirroring federal deployments to Illinois and California as well as Minnesota where ICE officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed American citizen Renee Good in her car earlier this month.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, launched an investigation in October into a report on the unconstitutional detention of U.S. citizens by immigration officials, and on Wednesday called for answers about a new whistleblower’s revelations.
Mr. Blumenthal sent a list of questions and records requests to Mr. Lyons, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Benjamin C. Huffman, director of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. The senator also sent a letter to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) urging them to convene ICE and DHS leaders to testify before their committees.
“All Americans should be horrified by this secret policy that gives our agents the power to kick down doors and break into homes,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “This is a legally and morally abhorrent policy, and is typical of the dangerous and shameful abuses America is witnessing in real time.”
“Our democracy prohibits the government from entering people’s homes without a judge’s permission, with rare exceptions,” he continued. “Government officials have no right to raid your bedroom or terrorize your children based on their whims or personal desires. I am deeply grateful to the brave whistleblowers who came forward and put the rights of their fellow citizens first.”
“My Republican colleagues who claim to value individual rights against government overreach have an opportunity and an obligation to prove that the rhetoric is genuine,” the senator added. “They must hold public hearings and join me in demanding a response from the Trump administration to this lawless policy.”
