What is the Fourth Amendment? Does ICE violate the Amendment by entering a home without a warrant?

as Immigration and Customs Enforcementor iceagents continue to use aggressive and sometimes violent methods to arrest large numbers of people deportation Activityincluding a breaking and entering in minneapolis homeA bombshell report from The Associated Press on January 21, 2026, about an internal ICE memo – via whistleblower – Claims that immigration officials can enter the house without identification Judgeof ensure. The policy “is a serious reversal of long-standing guidelines designed to respect constitutional limits on government searches,” the report said.

These restrictions are already found in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Politics Editor Naomi Schalit spoke with Dickinson College President John E. Jones III, a former federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2002, to get a first look at the Fourth Amendment and what the changes in the ICE memorandum mean.

Okay, I’m going to read the Fourth Amendment – and then ask you to explain it to us! here it is:

“right people The security of persons, premises, papers and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures, and shall be inviolable Warrants It shall be issued, but shall have probable cause, supported by an oath or declaration, and shall particularly describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. “Can you help us understand what this means?”

Since the founding of the Republic, it has been undisputed that in order to invade someone’s home, you need a search warrant that is considered and signed by a judicial officer. This authorization is fully consistent with the Fourth Amendment; it is a core protection.

Beyond that, through jurisprudence that has evolved since the passage of the Fourth Amendment, it has become established law that applies to everyone. This also includes non-citizens.

What I saw in this directive that ICE issued, apparently a long time ago and somewhat secretly, seems to me to subvert the Fourth Amendment.

What is the Fourth Amendment intended to protect someone from?

In the context of an ICE search, this means that a person’s home, as they say, is indeed their castle. Historically, it was intended to correct a fact in the colonists’ native Britain that the king, or persons authorized by the king, could invade people’s homes at will. The Fourth Amendment was designed to create a zone of privacy for people so that their papers, property, and persons would not be subject to unwarranted intrusions.

Therefore, it is essentially a protection against the abuse of government power.

Exactly so.

Has the accepted interpretation of the Fourth Amendment changed over the centuries?

not yet. But Fourth Amendment law has evolved because the Framers did not foresee cell phones. They couldn’t understand or anticipate that there would be things like cell phones and electronic surveillance. All of these methods are protected by the Fourth Amendment. Simply because of technological and other developments (such as the use of automobiles and other forms of transportation), legal developments have actually made Fourth Amendment protections larger and broader. Therefore, there are more privacy zones than one’s home.

ICE says entering a home and arresting someone only requires an administrative warrant, not a judicial warrant. Can you briefly describe the difference and what it means in this context?

That’s definitely the heart of the issue here. In this case, an executive order is nothing more than someone at ICE headquarters writing something and instructing their agents to arrest someone. that’s all. It’s a piece of paper that says, “We want to arrest you because we say so.” It’s an executive order at the end of the day, and of course it hasn’t been approved by a judge yet.

This authority to use administrative writs to circumvent the Fourth Amendment is contrary to the limited use of administrative writs prior to the ICE directive.

A judicially approved warrant, on the other hand, has by definition been reviewed by a judge. In this case, the judge is either a U.S. Magistrate Judge or a U.S. District Judge. This means there must be probable cause to enter someone’s home and arrest them.

So the key difference is that there is a neutral arbiter. In this case, a federal judge evaluates whether there is sufficient cause (as clearly stated in the Fourth Amendment) to have a right to enter someone’s home. Executive orders have no such protection. It is nothing more than a piece of paper generated by ICE in a self-serving manner without review to verify its contents.

Are there other types of situations historically where governments have successfully proposed work around the Fourth Amendment?

There are some, such as consent searches and emergencies where someone is in danger or evidence is about to be destroyed. But often the opposite is true, and cases demonstrate the need for greater protection. For example, in the 1960s, the Supreme Court had to deal with warrantless wiretapping; it was very difficult for the tech-savvy judges of that era to apply the Fourth Amendment to this technology, and they struggled to find a remedy without actually invading the structure. Ultimately, the court held that the intrusion was unnecessary and that people’s expectation of privacy included their telephone conversations. Of course, this has been extended to a variety of other technological means, including GPS tracking and the widespread use of cell phones.

Where might things be headed at this moment?

My concern here is — and I think ICE probably knows this — that a person who may not have legal status in the country, despite ICE’s violation of the Fourth Amendment, may often end up out of luck. You can say the arrest was illegal and then you go back to the first party, but at the same time you’ve arrested the person. So I’m trying to figure out how to fix this.