As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents continue to use aggressive and sometimes violent methods to make arrests during mass deportations, including Breaking into Minneapolis homesone Associated Press breaking story on January 21, 2026said an internal ICE memo – obtained through whistleblowers – Claims immigration officials can enter the home without a judge’s authorization. The policy “is a serious reversal of long-standing guidelines designed to respect constitutional limits on government searches,” the report said.
These restrictions have already been Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Politics Editor Naomi Shalit interviews Dickinson College President and former federal judge John E. Jones III Appointed by President George W. Bush and was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2002 as a primer on the Fourth Amendment and what the changes in the ICE memorandum mean.
Okay, I’m going to study fourth amendment – And please explain it to us! here it is:
“The 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 search warrant shall be issued except upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and specifically describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Can you help us understand what this means?
Since the early years of the Republic of ChinaWhat is undisputed is 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 see In the directive issued by ICEApparently it was a long time ago and somewhat secretive, and in my opinion, something that subverts 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, its purpose was to correct some reality in Britain, the homeland of the colonists, the king or a person authorized by the king Can 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, for example, I didn’t expect there would be a mobile phone. They couldn’t understand or anticipate that there would be things like cell phones and electronic surveillance. All of these models have entered the space Fourth Amendment protection. The way the law has developed has actually made Fourth Amendment protections are broader and broadersimply because of technological and other developments such as the use of cars and other means of transportation. 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. judicially approved arrest warrantOn the other hand, by definition, it has 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 several, For example, consent to search An emergency situation in which someone is in danger or evidence is about to be destroyed. But usually the opposite is true Case shows need for greater protection. For example, in the 1960s, the Supreme Court had to deal with warrantless wiretapping; it was very difficult for judges of that era who were not technologically savvy to apply the Fourth Amendment to this technology, and they struggled to find a remedy without actually intruding into the structure. in the end, Court finds intrusion unnecessary and people’s expectations for privacy including their phone 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. John E. Jones IIIpresident, Dickinson College This article is reproduced from dialogue Licensed under Creative Commons. read Original article.
