What to know about the warrants most immigration agents use to make arrests

As the Trump administration intensifies immigration enforcement nationwide, a wave of high-profile arrests — many unfolding at private homes and businesses and captured on video — has pushed one legal question into the center of the national debate: When can federal immigration agents lawfully enter private property to make an arrest?

That question has taken on new urgency in cities like Minneapolis, where thousands of federal agents are operating on the streets amid protests, confrontations and a fatal shooting, sharpening scrutiny of the legal authority immigration officers rely on when they arrive at the front door.

At the heart of the debate is a legal distinction largely unfamiliar to the public but central to immigration enforcement.

Most immigration arrests are carried out under administrative warrants, internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest of a specific individual but do not permit officers to forcibly enter private homes or other non-public spaces without consent. Only criminal warrants signed by judges carry that authority. Legal experts say the administration's aggressive enforcement push, combined with public awareness of those limits, is increasingly turning door-knock encounters into flashpoints, fueling confrontations that are now playing out in cities across the country.

Here is what to know about the limitations on the warrants that authorize most immigration related arrests.

Immigration warrants typically don't authorize entry onto private property

All law enforcement operations — including those conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — are governed by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects all people in the country from unreasonable searches and seizures. That means law enforcement is required to have a warrant before searching one's private property or arresting someone, regardless of immigration status.

Judicial warrants are issued by a court and signed by a magistrate or a state or federal judge. These warrants allow a relevant law enforcement agency to apprehend a specified individual in any context — regardless of whether the person is on public or on private property. In other words, law enforcement is legally allowed to enter and search a home or business to make the arrest without the consent of the property owner once a judge signs off on the arrest.

By contrast, the administrative warrants used in most immigration operations are sanctioned by an agency, officer or immigration judge, and don't allow law enforcement to forcibly enter private property to detain someone.

That means people can legally refuse federal immigration agents entry into private property if the agents only have an administrative warrant.

There are limited exceptions, some of which include if someone is in immediate danger, an officer is actively chasing a suspect or if someone is calling for help inside the residence. But those exceptions don't apply in routine immigration arrests, legal experts say.

John Sandweg, a former ICE acting director, said officers are trained on what circumstances legally justify forced entry. But as the scope of ICE's work has expanded, and more Border Patrol agents have begun conducting the work of ICE officers, there is a greater chance that agents will misapply the rules, he said.

Mounting tensions in Minneapolis

The thorny legal distinction between judicial and administrative warrants came to the fore on Sunday when immigration law enforcement raided a private home to make an arrest in Minneapolis, after clashing with protesters who confronted the heavily armed agents. Documents reviewed by The Associated Press revealed that the agents only had an administrative warrant — meaning there was no judge that authorized the raid on private property.

When asked, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin didn't provide a legal justification for the forced entry and arrest of the man, who is a Liberian national with a deportation order from 2023. She said his arrest was part of the administration's efforts to arrest ''the worst of the worst'' and added that he had that a criminal history including ''robbery, drug possession with the intent to sell, possession of a deadly weapon, malicious destruction and theft."

McLaughlin didn't specify whether he was convicted of any of those crimes, or whether his arrest was related to any criminal activity.

Vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, Heidi Altman, said she couldn't comment on that specific raid, but said that generally an officer entering a home without consent or permission could result in serious consequences.

But in the current political climate, Altman said, it isn't clear if there are any realistic avenues for accountability since the federal government would be responsible for investigating such a breech.

''There are layers of federal laws and regulations and policies prohibiting this kind of behavior. But then the second layer is: Is the federal government going to impose consequences?" she said.

On top of that, immigrants have less recourse after an illegal arrest or search, since the illegally obtained evidence can still be used in immigration court. It's called the exclusionary rule, Altman explained, and the consequences that the officer may face would not undo the immediate consequences immigrants could face if they are quickly deported.

''As those legal challenges come and people are facing very, very quick detentions and deportations on the basis of these illegal arrests, there's very little recourse in actual immigration court proceedings that allows people to have a judge disregard evidence or the actual arrest, even if it was done in this very violent, illegal manner,'' Altman said.

'Know-your-rights' campaigns

In response, activists, lawyers and local governments have launched ''know-your-rights'' campaigns around the country, attempting to educate people on the legal nuances of the extremely convoluted legal framework that is supposed to govern immigration law enforcement.

Many groups have published fact sheets and infographics on social media, while others facilitate meetings that go over constitutional protections that immigrants have — regardless of legal status — in interactions with federal agents.