BREAKING: I Have Filed a FOIA Request for the DHS OGC Determination Allowing ICE to Search Homes Without a Judicial Warrant

National Security Counselors has filed a FOIA on behalf of MSW Media to obtain the legal opinion from the DHS Office of General Counsel calling searches without a judicial warrant "legal."

If you haven’t heard by now, two whistleblowers have contacted Congress through Whistleblower Aid with information that DHS officials instructed ICE agents to ignore longstanding DHS policy and The Constitution, and enter our homes by any means necessary without a judicial warrant.

According to the hidden DHS memo shared by the whistleblowers, the Department of Homeland Security Office of General Counsel drew a legal conclusion that judicial warrants are no longer required to conduct such searches. Though we have the memo from the whistleblowers, the Office of General Counsel determination remains a secret.

I want to see it.

To that end, National Security Counselors has filed a Freedom of Information Act request on my behalf. It states, in part:

On 12 May 2025, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons issued a memo authorizing ICE agents to forcibly enter into certain people’s homes without a judicial warrant, consent, or an emergency.

That memo stated, “Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose.

Accordingly, in light of this legal determination, ICE immigration officers may arrest and detain aliens subject to a final order of removal issued by an immigration judge, the Board of

Immigration Appeals (BIA), or a U.S. district court judge or magistrate judge in their place of residence.”

This is a FOIA request on behalf of MSW Media--a representative of the news media--for all OGC records describing or memorializing this “determination” by the DHS OGC, which has been officially adopted by DHS and ICE as working law and for which any privilege has been waived. Please release all records in electronic form.

MSW Media (https://mswmedia.com) operates numerous podcasts and blogs about federal government operations, including Mueller She Wrote, SpyTalk, Daily Beans, and Jack. It will clearly use its editorial skills to translate disclosed records into new material. Given the intense public and media interest in the operations and excesses of ICE agents, these records will significantly increase the public understanding of government operations.

The ongoing story of the excesses of ICE agents is one of the most newsworthy and fast-developing topics in the news today.

MSW Media has a pressing need to report on these records and shed light on the legal justifications given by DHS OGC in this matter, which raise significant questions of government misconduct.

National Security Counselors does this work on behalf of MSW Media pro bono, but you can make a tax-deductible donation to them directly to help support their work here.

Additionally, MSW Media partners with Whistleblower Aid, and you can make a tax deductible donation to fund their important work here.

You can watch our reporting on this developing story here: