Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is in panic mode after a group of its former top lawyers publicly slammed ICE’s secret use of administrative warrants to enter people’s homes.
After the practice sparked whistleblower complaints and a possible court battle, the Homeland Security secretary last month ordered her top lawyer, General Counsel James Percival, to defend ICE not seeking a judge’s warrant in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
However, that backfired when six of the department’s former top lawyers wrote an unprecedented joint response in The New York Times on Monday. The group of former DHS general counsels publicly shamed Percival for his “dangerous” and “offensive” commentary, which claimed “deep-state actors” were to blame for ICE agents thinking they couldn’t use an administrative warrant to enter homes.
“It is not the so-called deep state that has restrained ICE from entering homes using only administrative warrants. It is the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution—and the lawyers who took an oath to support and defend it," the group shot back at Percival.
Stung by the rebuke, the Beast can reveal that DHS spin doctors resent Percival’s piece to its media mailing list with an “ICYMI” (in case you missed it) header. It claimed the article “debunks the mainstream media’s false narratives regarding ICE’s use of administrative warrants” and the Fourth Amendment, while insisting that their use was “in actuality…still lawful.”
The DHS comms shop was also revealed by immigration outlet Migrant Insider to have hastily delivered a document to Democratic congressional offices on Tuesday, which the publication said “leans heavily” on Percival’s article to defend the use of non-judicial warrants.
After witnessing the crude cleanup attempt, a source with many years of experience in the department told the Beast that the response showed Noem knew she was on shaky ground with her approach to ignoring the need for judicial warrants.
The insider said, “The bipartisan former employees were responding to DHS by speaking truth to power. That DHS would respond by circulating its original statement and sending around this leaflet to lawmakers shows that DHS can’t handle the truth.”
The Fourth Amendment bars “unreasonable searches and seizures” and has long been read to make the front door of a home a constitutional red line. Except in narrow emergency situations, officers need consent or a warrant signed by a judge to force entry.
ICE has used internal civil “administrative warrants” for years to arrest people for deportation, but those forms are signed by immigration officials, not judges, and have traditionally been used in jails, workplaces, or on the street—not as a key to people’s living rooms.
The controversy erupted after a May 2025 ICE memo sent by ICE Director Todd Lyons—exposed by whistleblowers and leaked to the media late last month—told agents they could use administrative warrants alone to force their way into homes.
This triggered a lawsuit in Boston and a wave of constitutional warnings from legal experts.
In addition to DHS and Noem, Vice President JD Vance has defended the approach, insisting the administration will “never” enter homes without “some kind of warrant” and arguing that “different types of warrants” can support immigration raids.
Critics say his comments deliberately obscure the core Fourth Amendment issue, given that these warrants are issued by ICE rather than by a neutral judge.
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS for comment.
