Johnson balks at Dem demands to halt warrantless searches by ICE agents

WASHINGTON (CN) — House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday rejected Democratic demands to codify search warrant requirements for federal agents looking to forcibly enter people’s homes amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The top House Republican’s comments — which come as Congress prepares to negotiate a laundry list of reforms Democrats want written into the Homeland Security Department’s budget — also appeared to misrepresent the authority the Trump administration has claimed to enter certain homes without written approval from a judge.

The White House’s approach to immigration enforcement has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks amid its sweeping campaign in Minnesota that has so far seen federal agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection arrest dozens of people and kill two U.S. citizens. And DHS faced renewed criticism last month after whistleblowers leaked an internal agency memo authorizing agents to forcibly enter homes without securing a judicial warrant.

Homeland Security has claimed its officers do not need such a warrant — which is typically signed by a judge — and instead only require what’s known as an administrative warrant approved by an “immigration officer.”

The memo runs counter to longstanding advice provided by immigration advocates who instruct people not to open their doors for immigration agents unless they are shown a judicial warrant. Administrative warrants, advocates have long said, do not give officers the ability to enter a home uninvited. And DHS’ own legal training handbook holds that agents who enter a home without a warrant, even if they have probable cause to do so, “typically” violate the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

Democrats have demanded that any bill to fund DHS include language codifying judicial warrant requirements for ICE agents. But Johnson on Tuesday rejected that proposal, claiming Democrats wanted to tack on an “entirely new layer” of mandates for federal immigration enforcement.

“They want to have a judicial warrant on top of the immigration judgment,” the House speaker told reporters during a news conference. “We can’t do that.”

Johnson contended it would take “decades” for ICE agents to secure judicial warrants for people here illegally and that there weren’t enough judges to handle the load. “We’ve got to apply reason,” he said. “We have to apply the Constitution, we have to respect it. … But I can tell you that we are never going to go along with adding an entirely new layer of judicial warrants, because it’s unimplementable.”

Pressed by Courthouse News on why he believed codifying what had long been existing practice for federal immigration authorities amounted to “new” barriers for ICE agents, Johnson demurred.

The top House Republican pointed to the DHS manual’s guidelines for adhering to the Fourth Amendment, arguing that while federal agents were attempting to conduct immigration enforcement in a “meaningful and thoughtful way,” they were being met with “unprecedented” opposition from state and local officials in states such as Minnesota.

“We’re going to have all these discussions over the next couple of weeks,” Johnson said of the warrant requirement demands. “I’m just telling you that adding a whole new layer of judicial warrant requirement is an unworkable proposal.”

The speaker also defended the use of administrative warrants to enter homes, claiming they were issued by immigration judges and that they offered “sufficient legal authority” for federal agents to force their way into a private residence.

But immigration advocates immediately took issue with Johnson’s interpretation of administrative warrants. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote in a post on X that the House speaker’s comments were “false.”

“Administrative warrants are NOT signed by an immigration judge (or any judge at all),” said Reichlin-Melnick. “They are generated and signed by ICE officers themselves with no external oversight whatsoever.”

Homeland Security has said it can use administrative warrants, rather than judicial warrants, to enter the homes of people here illegally if they have a final removal order from an immigration judge. In a fact sheet provided to lawmakers, first reported by Migrant Insider, the agency cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in the 1960 case Abel v. U.S., in which the justices held that there was historical support for the “propriety of administrative arrest for deportable aliens.”

Immigration agents have typically used administrative warrants to make arrests in public or in private homes if they’ve been invited in. But the Supreme Court in 1972 ruled in the case Shadwick v. City of Tampa that search warrants should be issued by a “neutral and detached” magistrate capable of determining probable cause to forcibly enter a home.

Still, DHS officials have repeatedly claimed people here illegally do not enjoy the same Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search as U.S. citizens — and that people with removal orders have already received due process.

Meanwhile, the House on Tuesday approved a two-week budget stopgap for the Homeland Security Department, freezing the agency’s spending while lawmakers hash out Democrats’ list of reforms. In addition to the warrant requirement, Democrats have also backed language that would force federal agents to use body-worn cameras and block them from using face masks to conceal their identities.

House Democrats on Monday also penned a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, urging them to rescind the May guidance authorizing agents to enter homes without a judicial warrant.

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