ICE Directive Discovery

Plus: silent Bezos, post-fire future, and an investigation in Texas.

On January 11, just days after Renee Good was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minnesota, the Associated Press witnessed ICE officers in heavy tactical gear use a battering ram to force their way into the home of Garrison Gibson, a Liberian man with a 2023 deportation order. After further investigation, the AP discovered that agents had used only a limited administrative warrant to justify their action, violating long-standing guidance that a judge has to authorize any raid on a residence.

Now, the AP is out with a bombshell report that offers a possible explanation. It obtained a secret internal memo that authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a home based only on an administrative warrant, a move that asserts a sweeping power seemingly at odds with Fourth Amendment protections and reverses years of guidance shared with immigrant communities. The memo was signed last May by acting ICE director Todd Lyons.

According to the AP report, from Rebecca Santana, the directive was not widely distributed, but new ICE officers have been told to follow its guidance instead of other written DHS materials that directly contradict it. Santana writes that the shift is expected to trigger court challenges and backlash from advocates and local officials: “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.”