ICE Expands Power of Agents to Arrest People Without Warrants

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/us/politics/ice-expands-power-agents-warrants.html

https://archive.ph/eU1K9

ICE Expands Power of Agents to Arrest People Without Warrants
An internal memo changed the standard from whether people are unlikely to show up for hearings to whether they could leave the scene.
By Hamed Aleaziz and Charlie Savage
Jan. 30, 2026

Amid tensions over President Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota and beyond, federal agents were told this week that they have broader power to arrest people without a warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo reviewed by The New York Times.

The change expands the ability of lower-level ICE agents to carry out sweeps rounding up people they encounter and suspect are undocumented immigrants, rather than targeted enforcement operations in which they set out, warrant in hand, to arrest a specific person.

The shift comes as the administration has deployed thousands of masked immigration agents into cities nationwide. A week before the memo, it came to light that Todd M. Lyons, the acting director of the agency, had issued guidance in May saying agents could enter homes with only an administrative warrant, not a judicial one. And the day before the memo, Mr. Trump said he would “de-escalate a little bit” in Minneapolis, after agents fatally shot two people in the crackdown there.

The memo, addressed to all ICE personnel and signed on Wednesday by Mr. Lyons, centers on a federal law that empowers agents to make warrantless arrests of people they believe are undocumented immigrants, if they are “likely to escape” before an arrest warrant can be obtained.

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This is a new memo from Todd Lyons, on top of the previous memo which authorized his thugs to enter people's homes without a judicial warrant

[leftstreet]

1. With this expansion, they'll need more money

for sure

[dalton99a]

3. +1. More money for warrantless searches and warrantless arrests

[2naSalit]

2. By what authority?

I don't think he has the authority to tell his minions to violate the Constitution. But that doesn't seem to matter for those intent on destroying the country.

[dalton99a]

5. His own authority, although the idea of warrantless searches and warrantless arrests likely came from Miller

[sinkingfeeling]

4. So, can any law enforcement group just decide to waive having a warrant? Asking for the US Constitution.

[leftstreet]

7. ICE's mascot: Canary In The Coal Mine

+1

[Chasstev365]

6. Hey Mitchell McConnell, John Roberts, and Milquetoast Garland:

YOU DID THIS!

You must be so proud of yourselves.

[Bettie]

8. So, anyone with an ability to move

can be arrested without a warrant....no probable cause, no reason other than "they looked like they might be able to move".

Sounds like they are now allowed to kill anyone they please too, as being dead or badly injured is the only way they could not conceivably move enough to "leave the scene" and they can accuse anyone, literally anyone, of being here illegally.

Apparently, we now do live in a police state where the rule of law is whatever ICE says it is.

[D_Master81]

9. Smells like......fascism

People are just willfully ignoring that we are a fascist state now. People getting arrested without a warrant goes against everything this country has stood on.

[bigtree]

10. ICE expanded their own violations of the law

...that's all.

[justaprogressive]

11. They changed their directives,

they did NOT change the law.

"Administrative Warrant" my ass!

There's no such legal document.