ICE Arrests, Tear-Gasses, Deports First, Fourth Amendments
Get ready for them to quarter troops in your condo.
If you’re wondering why Trump’s deportation goons seem to be ignoring the Constitution a lot lately, there’s a good reason for that: They don’t wanna be dragged down by the Woke Bill of Rights, and besides, they’re also being told to ignore the Fourth Amendment requirement that requires a warrant signed by a judge before they go busting down doors of people’s homes.
Courting Disaster, Or, The Spray’s The Thing
Last Friday, we were briefly encouraged when a federal judge in Minnesota ruled that ICE has to respect the constitutional rights of peaceful protesters, even if the protesters say rude things. In response to a case brought by activists, US District Judge Katherine Menendez pointed out that attacking and arresting people protesting ICE had a “chilling effect” on free speech far worse than the subzero temperatures in the Twin Cities.
In what sure seemed like Just Common Sense Constitution Stuff, Menendez issued an order prohibiting federal goons from retaliating against peaceful protesters, arresting peaceful protesters, or pepper-spraying or using other nonlethal munitions on peaceful protesters, including people recording them with phones or other cameras, as long as they aren’t interfering with the goons’ actions. Same goes for people blowing whistles to call attention to ICE raids, and to drivers following ICE raiders at a safe distance and honking their horns.
That’s all just basic US Constitution 101, and Judge Menendez reminded the ICE goons what “probable cause” means, in case some had taken a bathroom break during the five minutes their training covered that.
ICE goons promptly continued tear gassing, pepper spraying, and arresting people exercising their right to free speech, as if Judge Menendez hadn’t issued an order at all. In one case, they sprayed pepper spray right in the face of an observer who had been recording them as they bundled someone into an unmarked black van.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called the order “a little ridiculous,” insisting that ICE doesn’t do anything Menendez ruled off-limits anyway. So reporters showed her video of a family getting pepper-sprayed, and she said that her brave federal agents have to protect themselves from being attacked, which apparently means it’s OK to tear gas little babies inside their families’ cars.
On Monday, the Justice Department celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy of nonviolent resistance by filing an appeal of the order. Thankfully ICE didn’t get too heavily into historic reenactment, and refrained from siccing attack dogs on protesters or blasting them with high pressure fire hoses.
Then on Wednesday, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals came to the goons’ rescue, lifting Menendez’s tyrannical order protecting protesters’ constitutional rights. The Guardian’s headline was appropriately disgusted: “US court allows ICE to arrest and pepper-spray peaceful protesters in Minnesota.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi was delighted by the decision, whining on Twitter (archive link) that Menendez “tried to handcuff ICE agents who are enforcing the Nation’s immigration laws and responding to obstructive and violent interference from agitators,” and completely ignoring the thing where the order protected peaceful protesters. Ha-ha, we are joking, since no such people exist. Bondi vowed that the Just ICE Department will protect its goon squads from both “criminals in the streets AND activist judges in the courtroom.” Presumably, this means federal judges can now be pepper sprayed in the face if they get out of line.
We should note, however, that the Eighth Circuit decision itself is temporary, setting aside Menendez’s order while the appeals court hears motions on whether ICE should be allowed to run wild as the lawsuit proceeds, or to restore Menendez’s restrictions. Should the latter happen, you can bet it will be immediately appealed to the Supremes, who will no doubt permit ICE to do what it damn well pleases, at least while the case goes forward in the lower courts.
No-Knock Warrants? How About No-Judge Warrants?
Hey, remember that October ICE raid in Chicago where the goons rappelled onto the roof of an apartment building, for a sizzle reel video, while other goons stormed in through the entrance and started busting down every door in the place, then forced whole families, including US citizens, out into the cold? We wondered at the time how the fuck anyone in ICE thought it was legal to do that without a judge’s warrant. (And despite DHS’s insistence that it had to roust all the residents from their beds because the building was stuffed to the rafters with Tren de Aragua gangbangers, the raid resulted in ZERO criminal charges.)
Looks like we now have a clue as to why that and other ICE home invasions have been happening without judicial warrants. According to a whistleblower report revealed this week first by the Associated Press and then other outlets, a May 2025 directive from (acting) ICE boss Todd Lyons authorized ICE goons to disregard the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that searching a home requires a warrant from a judge, specifying what can be searched for and where. (The memo itself is reproduced in the anonymous ICE whistleblower’s complaint to the nonprofit group Whistleblower Aid.)
Instead, the ICE memo said goons could enter a residence with only an administrative warrant to arrest someone with an order of removal, which doesn’t require any judge at all, just an agency sign-off. Up until the memo, those administrative warrants only allowed ICE to nab people in public. Civil liberties experts say the directive doesn’t change the goddamn existing case law on that, either, but that hasn’t gotten in the way of ICE changing how it operates.
As the AP explains, without nearly enough exclamation points, red arrows, or obscene imprecations for our taste,
For years, immigrant advocates, legal aid groups and local governments have urged people not to open their doors to immigration agents unless they are shown a warrant signed by a judge. That guidance is rooted in Supreme Court rulings that generally prohibit law enforcement from entering a home without judicial approval. The ICE directive directly undercuts that advice at a time when arrests are accelerating under the administration’s immigration crackdown.
The whistleblower complaint says that while the memo itself hasn’t circulated widely inside DHS, the directive to trash the Constitution has been used in training new ICE agents, who are already not exactly subject to much vetting. Per the AP report, “New ICE hires and those still in training are being told to follow the memo’s guidance instead of written training materials that actually contradict the memo, according to the whistleblower disclosure.”
The AP says the whistleblower report was leaked to it by “an official in Congress,” and thank Crom for that. The memo says that DHS’s general counsel office determined that, contrary to all previous practice, the Constitution and US laws don’t outright prohibit busting down doors and entering homes without a judge’s warrant, although the memo doesn’t pretend to explain the reasoning for that.
The AP story doesn’t specifically link the May policy memo to that October apartment raid in Chicago, but it seems pretty fucking likely to us. As Our Liz explains at Public Notice, this is just part of a wider DHS assault on the Fourth Amendment, which is also supposed to prohibit arresting people without a warrant unless cops witness them actually committing a crime.
Get ready for the lawsuits to start flying, and Crom only knows how badly the Constitution will be shredded in the process.
[Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance / Order in Tincher v. Noem / Minnesota Post / Guardian / Reuters / AP / Whistleblower Aid / Public Notice]
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if you’d like to make a one-time (or recurring) donation, here’s your button!
This post's theme song is an unforgettable anthem from The Clash, yet another satirical work refashioned (or refascisted) into federal policy.
https://youtu.be/1EKCAE1vDzY
When the ATF did this ONCE in Waco, the radical right blew up a Federal Building in Oklahoma.