Since last summer, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have been forcibly entering the homes of people subject to deportation without warrants signed by judges, two administration officials told NBC News.
An internal document, dated May 12, 2025, but made public by two whistleblowers earlier this week, told officers they could rely on an administrative warrant to enter homes if there was an order to remove someone from the country.
Administrative warrants are signed by officials in ICE field offices and generally permit officers and agents to make arrests — a lower legal standard than a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate, which is broadly what is needed when law enforcement enters a home.
The news comes as ICE continues to ramp up operations across the U.S. to boost deportations, and as questions grow around its tactics.
The officials did not specify how many homes had been entered. But they told NBC News that the May memo followed a March 2025 opinion from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the General Counsel. Charlie Wall, recently named acting deputy director of ICE, has been tasked with implementing the policy, the officials said.
Wall then went to Los Angeles in June ahead of an immigration enforcement action there to brief officers on the new policy, the officials said. Immigration agents ramped up arrests beginning June 6, and the presence of ICE in Los Angeles touched off protests across the city.
One of the officials said the policy is now being referenced in training materials.
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the policy is actively in use, but would not give specifics on where or how many times homes have been entered.
“In every case that DHS uses an administrative warrant to enter a residence, an illegal alien has already had their full due process,” she said.
The memo, which is dated May 12, 2025, and says it is from acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, was shared with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., by two whistleblowers.
Lyons said in the document that detaining people “in their residences” based solely on administrative warrants is a change from past procedures.
“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 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,” the memo says.
The memo says that “aliens” whom agents may “arrest and detain” in their places of residence are those subject to final orders of removal issued by immigration judges, the Board of Immigration Appeals, or U.S. district or magistrate judges.
It says that officers and agents must give the people inside time to comply with the order.
It also says they generally should not enter a residence before 6 a.m. or after 10 p.m., and that they “should only use a necessary and reasonable amount of force” to enter a home.
The Associated Press first reported the document Wednesday.
Laura Strickler contributed.