ICE Administrative Warrants and the Fourth Amendment: A Response to the DHS General Counsel

(Chris Hardee – Just Security) The judicial warrant requirement is now at the center of the Department of Homeland Security funding debate. In a recent Wall Street Journal editorial titled “How the Deep State Thwarted ICE Administrative Warrants,” DHS General Counsel James “Jimmy” Percival outlined the administration’s legal case for why ICE can enter homes without a judicial warrant. The op-ed has since been repackaged as bullet points on DHS’s website and sent to members of Congress as part of DHS’s legislative effort to secure funding without meaningful reforms. It is the first public articulation of the legal reasoning behind a January 2026 secretive memorandum that reversed decades of DHS policy by instructing ICE agents they may enter homes to arrest noncitizens using administrative warrants — documents issued by ICE itself, without judicial oversight. The memo did not disclose the underlying legal analysis. The op-ed does. What it reveals should deepen congressional resolve to rein in ICE’s warrant authority. DHS’s legal position has no basis in the law. And it’s not just wrong, the policy it supports would expose any American’s home to a warrantless invasion by ICE. – ICE Administrative Warrants and the Fourth Amendment