With an Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo that allows officers to enter homes without a judicial warrant, the Trump administration is seeking to usurp guardrails that are enshrined in the Fourth Amendment and have protected Americans’ civil liberties for centuries, experts in constitutional law and immigration policy told CNN.

The internal memo, which was issued in May 2025 but revealed by a whistleblower complaint and first reported by the Associated Press on Wednesday, authorizes ICE officers to forcefully enter homes using only administrative warrants, essentially bypassing the neutral, third-party arbiters who would have reviewed evidence before signing a judicial warrant.

Administrative warrants are signed by ICE officers after an immigration judge orders the removal of an undocumented immigrant. But these immigration judges work for the Department of Justice at the pleasure of the attorney general, and the Trump administration refers to them as “deportation judges.”

“It would essentially be the same as if you were at the local police department, and the police officer that is both collecting the evidence and arresting you then goes and types up his own warrant to search your house because he thinks he has probable cause,” said Emmanuel Mauleón, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota.

“It’s deeply concerning, because there’s absolutely no safeguards and no accountability built into the system,” he said.

The history of the Fourth Amendment is rife with examples of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies seeking to challenge or whittle away its protections.

“This administration’s general stance is that immigrants are ‘invaders’ and immigration officials should be allowed to expedite their arrest, detention and deportation,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an attorney and analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. In doing so, she said, “they are pushing so many legal boundaries and doing things that have not been tried before in this way.”

The full CNN report