The rule at the threshold has not changed in decades, and it is worth stating exactly. Immigration officers may approach a home, knock, and speak to whoever answers from a public place. ICE's own enforcement FAQ says its officers "can initiate consensual encounters" and do not need a judicial warrant to make an arrest. Entering the home is a different act. ICE's Fugitive Operations Handbook tells its officers that neither of the agency's own warrant forms "authorizes you to enter the subject's residence," and that "you must obtain voluntary consent."
Everything that follows turns on that distinction.
Two warrants
A judicial warrant is issued by a court. It is signed by a judge or magistrate, carries the court's name at the top, and names the specific premises to be searched or the person to be arrested at that address. It authorizes entry. They are rare in civil immigration enforcement.
An administrative warrant is an ICE form. The I-200 authorizes the arrest of a named person for a suspected immigration violation; the I-205 authorizes removal after a judge's order. Both are signed by an immigration officer, not a judge. ICE says so itself: "Trained, authorized immigration officers can issue them." They authorize the arrest of the person named. They do not authorize entry into a home to find that person.
You can check which one you are looking at without opening the door. Ask the agents to hold the document against a window or slide it under the door. Look for a court caption, a judge's signature, and your address. If those are absent, it is an administrative form.
Consent
Opening the door is not consent to enter. Stepping back from it, or letting agents walk past you, is. Consent can be limited to one room and can be withdrawn. The sentence to say, through the closed door, is short: "I do not consent to your entry."
Nobody in the home is obliged to answer questions about where they were born, how they entered or what their status is, and nobody must produce documents. The one exception is the registration rule this site explained in February: registered non-citizens over 18 must carry their evidence of registration. Producing a document is not the same as answering questions. Do not lie, and never present a false document; each of those creates a problem that did not exist before the knock.
If they come in anyway
Do not resist physically. Say, and keep saying: "I do not consent to your entry or to your search of these premises. I am exercising my right to remain silent. I wish to speak with a lawyer." Record the encounter if your state allows it. The ACLU's rights guide covers the encounter step by step. Note names, badge numbers, agency and vehicles. Sign nothing. Write down everything afterwards while it is fresh; the account is evidence in the suppression motion that a lawyer may later bring.
What changed in 2025 and 2026
Three things, and one that did not.
Ruses are not new. Officers posing as local police, wearing vests marked POLICE, or asking about an unrelated "suspect" to get a door opened are a sanctioned ICE tactic dating to a 2005 memo and the 2010 handbook, both disclosed through litigation by the Immigrant Defense Project. What is new is the frequency.
The May 2025 entry memo. A memorandum signed by the acting ICE director on May 12, 2025 and disclosed by whistleblowers to Congress in January 2026 asserts that officers may force entry on an I-205 alone, against a person with a final removal order, after knocking and identifying themselves, between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. ICE kept it out of written circulation and trained new officers on it orally, against the agency's own training materials. It has not been tested in a published court decision. It contradicts the handbook. For a household containing someone with a final order, it means the door may not hold.
Protected areas. On January 20, 2025 DHS rescinded the 2021 guidance that kept enforcement away from schools, hospitals and places of worship, telling officers instead to use "a healthy dose of common sense." A challenge by religious denominations lost its preliminary injunction for lack of standing in April 2025 and is on appeal.
Masks. ICE says officers cover their faces to prevent doxing. California made on-duty face coverings by officers a crime in September 2025; a federal judge blocked the ban as applied to federal agents in February 2026 because it exempted state officers, but left the requirement that agencies post an identification policy in force.
And the thing that did not change: the hallway outside an apartment door is usually not protected. A 2025 Fourth Circuit decision held that a common hallway is not part of the home because the tenant cannot exclude other residents from it. Agents standing in the hallway are standing in a public place.
What to do
- Keep the door closed and speak through it. Ask to see the warrant through the window.
- If it is not signed by a judge and does not name your address, say you do not consent to entry.
- Say nothing about birthplace, entry or status. Produce registration evidence if you are legally required to carry it, and nothing else.
- If agents enter regardless, repeat the three sentences, do not resist, and record.
- Call a lawyer before answering any question or signing any paper; the courts' list of free legal service providers is the place to start.
The threshold rule is a constitutional one, and it has survived every administration. Whether it survives the encounter depends on the people on both sides of the door knowing it.