SAN FRANCISCO — Three legal advocacy organizations have filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit urging the court to rule that the Constitution prohibits U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from entering homes using self-issued administrative warrants, arguing such documents do not satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.
An amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on June 29, 2026, by three legal advocacy organizations arguing that the Constitution bars Immigration and Customs Enforcement from using self-issued administrative “warrants” to enter homes.
According to the press release, this includes the area immediately surrounding a home, known as the “curtilage.”
The brief was jointly submitted by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, the National Immigrant Justice Center and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
The brief argues that what ICE labels a warrant is not a real warrant. “Under the Fourth Amendment, your home is your castle, and the government cannot enter it based on a piece of paper that a police officer issued to another police officer,” the brief states.
The press release further reports the brief’s argument that “the warrant requirement exists to ensure that a detached and neutral decisionmaker determines there is probable cause for a search or seizure.”
It also adds that “ICE administrative warrants are issued by executive-branch supervisory officers who are inherently non-neutral.”
According to the brief, courts across the country have documented ICE’s failures, finding that administrative warrants “were unsigned, issued by unauthorized officers, created after arrests had already occurred, or lacked any individualized showing of probable cause.”
The press release notes that ICE once acknowledged these limits in its Fugitive Operations Handbook. That handbook stated that neither warrant type “authorizes officers to enter the target’s residence or anywhere else where the target has a reasonable expectation of privacy.”
It then reports that in May 2025, “the agency secretly implemented a policy, later revealed by a whistleblower, instructing officers that administrative warrants authorize them not only to approach homes for the purpose of arrest, but also to forcibly enter those homes.”
Jacob Gonzalez, staff attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, stated in the press release, “For 250 years, the Constitution has prohibited government agents from forcing their way into a person’s home without a judicial warrant.” He added, “ICE now defies that settled rule pursuant to a secret memo the public didn’t even know existed until a whistleblower came forward.”
Gonzalez also stated, “We must not stand for what happened in Minneapolis-masked ICE agents breaking down a family’s door without a constitutionally valid warrant-ever happening again.”
Mike Fleming, associate director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center, stated, “Our experience during Operation Midway Blitz has taught us that ICE does not take any of the safeguards under the Fourth Amendment seriously.”
He added, “It is critical that the courts remain resolute that fundamental Fourth Amendment protections, including being safe in one’s home, apply equally to citizens and noncitizens alike.”
Miosotti Tenecora, staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, stated, “ICE has been a rogue agency that ignores legal guidance while it carries out cruel and racist policies.”
Tenecora continued, “The law is clear: a warrant signed by a judge is required to enter someone’s home, including the curtilage of the home when there is no consent.” She added, “ICE cannot ‘authorize’ illegal and unconstitutional behavior by writing their own warrant. ICE must discontinue and retract any policy that says otherwise.”
According to the press release, the brief asks that if the Ninth Circuit reaches the issue, the court reject ICE’s assertion of authority. It also asks the court to affirm that the right to be secure in one’s home remains the “very core” of the Fourth Amendment, which “cannot be overridden with administrative paperwork.”
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