BLUMENTHAL DEMANDS ACCOUNTABILITY FOR SECRET ICE POLICY AUTHORIZING FEDERAL AGENTS TO ENTER HOMES WITHOUT A JUDICIAL WARRANT

[WASHINGTON, DC] - U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), is demanding accountability following whistleblower disclosures detailing a secret U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy permitting agents to circumvent the privacy protections in the Constitution's Fourth Amendment and enter Americans' homes without a standard warrant.

Anonymous whistleblowers disclosed a policy memo written by Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons authorizing federal immigration agents to enter American homes without a judicial warrant in order to effectuate civil immigration arrests. This policy is directly contrary to longstanding legal interpretation of the Fourth Amendment and agency practice, which requires ICE agents to obtain a judicial warrant duly signed and executed by a judge in order to enter someone's home. The whistleblower disclosure and public reporting reveal at least two examples of U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials wrongly entering the homes of American families in the past year.

Blumenthal is demanding U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem provide an explanation for the policy and calling for hearings in both the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees. Blumenthal also wrote the Director of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers to determine if instructors have secretly been directed to verbally train newly hired ICE agents to enter people's homes without a judicial warrant.

"Every American should be terrified by this secret ICE policy authorizing its agents to kick down your door and storm into your home. It is a legally and morally abhorrent policy that exemplifies the kinds of dangerous, disgraceful abuses America is seeing in real time. In our democracy, with vanishingly rare exceptions, the government is barred from breaking into your home without a judge giving a green light. Government agents have no right to ransack your bedroom or terrorize your kids on a whim or personal desire. I am deeply grateful to brave whistleblowers who have come forward and put the rights of their fellow Americans first."

"My Republican colleagues who claim to value personal rights against government overreach now have an opportunity and obligation to prove that rhetoric is real. They must hold hearings and join me in demanding the Trump Administration answer for this lawless policy."

Blumenthal is leading an ongoing investigation into the treatment of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents. In October, Blumenthal and U.S. Representative Robert Garcia (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, opened an inquiry into frequent reports of unconstitutional detentions of U.S. citizens by agents of ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), often using disproportionate force.

In December, Blumenthal released a report highlighting firsthand accounts of twenty-two Americans who were physically assaulted, pepper sprayed, denied medical treatment, and detained - sometimes for days - by federal immigration agents. The report, Unchecked Authority: Examining the Trump Administration's Extrajudicial Immigration Detentions Of U.S. Citizens, was released ahead of a bicameral public forum hosted by Blumenthal and Garcia to receive testimony from five Americans who were unconstitutionally detained by agents of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Both the report and the forum featured accounts of federal immigration officials acting with excessive force and then fabricating claims about the U.S. citizens who were detained.

Last week, following the killing of Renee Nicole Good, an unarmed U.S. citizen, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota Blumenthal wrote Noem seeking information and records regarding ICE training policies. The full text of Blumenthal's letter to Noem is available here.

Blumenthal's letter to Noem demanding information about the ICE policy is available here.

Blumenthal's letter to U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requesting a hearing in that committee is available here. Blumenthal's letter to U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, requesting a hearing in that committee is available here.

Blumenthal's letter to Benjamin Huffman, Director of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, is available here.

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