{"id":8016,"date":"2026-01-23T15:30:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T15:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/we-want-you-arrested-because-we-said-so-how-ices-policy-on-raiding-whatever-homes-it-wants-violates-a-basic-constitutional-right-according-to-a-former-federal-jud\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T15:30:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T15:30:05","slug":"we-want-you-arrested-because-we-said-so-how-ices-policy-on-raiding-whatever-homes-it-wants-violates-a-basic-constitutional-right-according-to-a-former-federal-jud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/we-want-you-arrested-because-we-said-so-how-ices-policy-on-raiding-whatever-homes-it-wants-violates-a-basic-constitutional-right-according-to-a-former-federal-jud\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We want you arrested because we said so\u2019 \u2013 how ICE\u2019s policy on raiding whatever homes it wants violates a basic constitutional right, according to a former federal judge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>As Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents continued to use aggressive and sometimes violent methods to make arrests in its mass deportation campaign, including breaking down doors in Minneapolis homes, a bombshell report from the Associated Press on Jan. 21, 2026, said that an internal ICE memo \u2013 acquired via a whistleblower \u2013 asserted that immigration officers could enter a home without a judge\u2019s warrant. That policy, the report said, constituted \u201ca sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>Those limits have long been found in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Politics editor Naomi Schalit interviewed Dickinson College President John E. Jones III, a former federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate in 2002, for a primer on the Fourth Amendment, and what the changes in the ICE memo mean.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>Okay, I\u2019m going to read the Fourth Amendment \u2013 and then you\u2019re going to explain it to us, please! Here goes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>\u201cThe right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, 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.\u201d Can you help us understand what that means?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Since the beginning of the republic, it has been uncontested that in order to invade someone\u2019s home, you need to have a warrant that was considered, and signed off on, by a judicial officer. This mandate is right within the Fourth Amendment; it is a core protection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In addition to that, through jurisprudence that has evolved since the adoption of the Fourth Amendment, it is settled law that it applies to everyone. That would include noncitizens as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">What I see in this directive that ICE put out, apparently quite some time ago and somewhat secretly, is something that, to my mind, turns the Fourth Amendment on its head.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"relative mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative\"><img alt=\"A dark-haired man looking grim and fiddling with his white-collared shirt.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/KhZitD_W_VidGqCa7g8l0A--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTY0MDtjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/the_conversation_us_articles_815\/8c85f091265b60458f91d3fd00b03853\"\/><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"group absolute bottom-0 size-full\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"absolute bottom-3 right-3 rounded-full bg-white p-3 opacity-100 shadow-elevation-3 transition-opacity duration-300 group-hover:block group-hover:opacity-100 md:p-[17px] lg:bottom-6 lg:right-6 lg:bg-white\/90 lg:p-5 lg:opacity-0 lg:shadow-none\"><svg viewbox=\"0 0 22 22\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"size-4 lg:size-6\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\"><path d=\"M12.372.92c0-.506.41-.916.915-.916L21 0l-.004 7.712a.917.917 0 0 1-1.832 0V3.183l-6.827 6.828-1.349-1.348 6.828-6.828h-4.529a.915.915 0 0 1-.915-.915M1.835 17.816l6.828-6.828 1.349 1.349-6.829 6.827h4.529a.915.915 0 0 1 0 1.831L0 21l.004-7.713a.916.916 0 0 1 1.831 0z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Modal Dialog\" aria-modal=\"true\" class=\"fixed bottom-0 left-0 right-0 top-0 z-4 size-full max-h-none max-w-none bg-white hidden\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-sm mt-1 pr-2.5\">\n<div style=\"max-height:none;overflow:visible\">Todd Lyons, the acting head of ICE, whose memorandum on May 12, 2025, authorized ICE agents to forcibly enter into certain people\u2019s homes without a judicial warrant, consent or an emergency. Brendan Smialowski\/AFP via Getty Images<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>What does the Fourth Amendment aim to protect someone from?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In the context of the ICE search, it means that a person\u2019s home, as they say, really is their castle. Historically, it was meant to remedy something that was true in England, where the colonists came from, which was that the king or those empowered by the king could invade people\u2019s homes at will. The Fourth Amendment was meant to establish a sort of zone of privacy for people, so that their papers, their property, their persons would be safe from intrusion without cause.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>So it\u2019s essentially a protection against abuse of the government\u2019s power.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">That\u2019s precisely what it is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>Has the accepted interpretation of the Fourth Amendment changed over the centuries?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It hasn\u2019t. But Fourth Amendment law has evolved because the framers, for example, didn\u2019t envision that there would be cellphones. They couldn\u2019t understand or anticipate that there would be things like cellphones and electronic surveillance. All those modalities have come into the sphere of Fourth Amendment protection. The law has evolved in a way that actually has made Fourth Amendment protections greater and more wide-ranging, simply because of technology and other developments such as the use of automobiles and other means of transportation. So there are greater protected zones of privacy than just a person\u2019s home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>ICE says it only needs an administrative warrant, not a judicial warrant, to enter a home and arrest someone. Can you briefly describe the difference and what it means in this situation?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It\u2019s absolutely central to the question here. In this context, an administrative warrant is nothing more than the folks at ICE headquarters writing something up and directing their agents to go arrest somebody. That\u2019s all. It\u2019s a piece of paper that says \u2018We want you arrested because we said so.\u2019 At bottom that\u2019s what an administrative warrant is, and of course it hasn\u2019t been approved by a judge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This authorized use of administrative warrants to circumvent the Fourth Amendment flies in the face of their limited use prior to the ICE directive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A judicially approved warrant, on the other hand, has by definition been reviewed by a judge. In this case, it would be either a U.S. magistrate judge or U.S. district judge. That means that it would have to be supported by probable cause to enter someone\u2019s residence to arrest them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">So the key distinction is that there\u2019s a neutral arbiter. In this case, a federal judge who evaluates whether or not there\u2019s sufficient cause to \u2013 as is stated clearly in the Fourth Amendment \u2013 be empowered to enter someone\u2019s home. An administrative warrant has no such protection. It is not much more than a piece of paper generated in a self-serving way by ICE, free of review to substantiate what is stated in it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>Have there been other kinds of situations, historically, where the government has successfully proposed working around the Fourth Amendment?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There are a few, such as consent searches and exigent circumstances where someone is in danger or evidence is about to be destroyed. But generally it\u2019s really the opposite and cases point to greater protections. For example, in the 1960s the Supreme Court had to confront warrantless wiretapping; it was very difficult for judges in that age who were not tech-savvy to apply the Fourth Amendment to this technology, and they struggled to find a remedy when there was no actual intrusion into a structure. In the end, the court found that intrusion was not necessary and that people\u2019s expectation of privacy included their phone conversations. This of course has been extended to various other means of technology including GPS tracking and cellphone use generally.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>What\u2019s the direction this could go in at this point?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">What I fear here \u2013 and I think ICE probably knows this \u2013 is that more often than not, a person who may not have legal standing to be in the country, notwithstanding the fact that there was a Fourth Amendment violation by ICE, may ultimately be out of luck. You could say that the arrest was illegal, and you go back to square one, but at the same time you\u2019ve apprehended the person. So I\u2019m struggling to figure out how you remedy this.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: John E. Jones III, <em>Dickinson College<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em><span>John E. Jones III is affiliated with Keep Our Republic\u2019s Article Three Coalition.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a ><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents continued to use aggressive and sometimes violent methods to make arrests in its mass deportation campaign, including breaking down doors in Minneapolis homes, a bombshell report from the Associated Press on Jan. 21, 2026, said that an internal ICE memo \u2013 acquired via a whistleblower \u2013 asserted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/3f69ef2fcbea194e180307b9d24ed030.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}