What legal rights do you have in encounters with ICE? Legal experts weigh in

This article originally appeared on PolitiFact.

Videos of confrontations between Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Minneapolis residents have flooded social media, showing some of the 3,000 officers deployed in the city stopping, questioning and detaining residents.

In one case, immigration officials escorted a US citizen, a grandfather of Hmong descent, out of his home in his underwear in extremely cold weather. In another case, the father of a 5-year-old girl was briefly detained and shackled after he said a federal agent falsely accused him of not being a U.S. citizen because of his accent. The agency is also under scrutiny over reports that a 5-year-old was sent to knock on the front door of his home to lure relatives outside before agents took the child into custody.

Read more: Federal officers detain 5-year-old boy Minnesota school official says was used as ‘bait’

The events sparked protests and created confusion about what ICE is legally allowed to do in public and private spaces. Are there limits to when and how ICE can approach or detain you? Does the law differentiate between meetings in public and private places, such as the home? Has the Supreme Court become more tolerant of ICE’s aggressive actions?

Legal experts have discussed the public’s constitutional protections from immigration arrest and detention.

What rights do people have when contacted by ICE?

Federal law gives immigration agents the authority to arrest and detain people who are believed to have violated immigration law. But everyone – including immigrants suspected of being in the United States illegally – are protected against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment.

“All law enforcement officials, including ICE, are bound by the Constitution,” said Alexandra Lopez, managing partner at a Chicago-based law firm that specializes in immigration cases.

The Fourth Amendment does not prevent ICE from trying to deport people who have violated immigration law, but it has traditionally restricted the agency. The more extensive the enforcement procedures, the greater the obstacle for immigration officials to justify their actions.

He watches: Thousands brave the bitter cold at an “ICE Out” protest in the Twin Cities

For example, officers can question someone in a public place, but more extensive interactions — such as brief detention that is not a formal arrest — require “reasonable suspicion” that someone has committed a crime or is in the United States illegally, the Supreme Court ruled.

Reasonable doubt “should be more than just a guess or an assumption,” said Michelle Goodwin, a law professor at Georgetown University. To meet this standard, a reasonable person must suspect that a crime has been committed, has been committed, or will be committed.

Agents must meet higher standards to arrest someone. They need “probable cause,” which generally requires sufficient evidence or information to indicate that a person has committed a crime.

What is the “Kavanaugh Pause”?

Historically, the Supreme Court has ruled that racial or ethnic profiling is unconstitutional. But a recent opinion by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh gave ICE more discretion to use race as a factor to stop and question people.

In the 2025 case Noem v. Perdomo, Kavanaugh was one of six justices who voted to stay a lower court ruling in favor of plaintiffs challenging federal immigration enforcement tactics in Los Angeles. Kavanaugh wrote that “apparent race” can be used “as a relevant factor” in determining reasonable suspicion, as long as it is combined with other factors and not used alone.

Read more: US citizen says Immigration and Customs Enforcement forced open the door of his Minnesota home and took him out in his underwear after a warrantless search.

Before Kavanaugh wrote this, courts “often ruled that agents couldn’t stop someone simply because they ‘looked like an immigrant’ or because they were in a high-crime area,” Lopez said. But if immigration officers follow Kavanaugh’s guidance, “it gives ICE more discretion and justification for their profile.”

Critics of Kavanaugh’s opinion “argue that the ‘relevant factor’ language invites abuse, opening the door to racial profiling,” said Rodney Smola, a law professor and graduate student at Vermont.

But Kavanaugh’s opinion was not signed by other justices, and came from a procedural ruling rather than a substantive ruling, so its legal impact may be limited. Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, said the Supreme Court “has not issued a final ruling on Kavanaugh’s stops and their permissibility.”

Somin and other legal analysts said Kavanaugh appeared to back away from his support for race or ethnicity as a factor when he wrote a different opinion several months later, in Trump v. Illinois, that blocked the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard to Illinois.

Chongli Thao, known as Scott, poses for a photo outside his home a day after Reuters photographed him at the same door where he was taken by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents before later being returned to St. Paul, Minnesota, US, January 19, 2026. Photo by Leah Millis via Reuters.

Are people’s rights different inside their homes than in public places?

The Supreme Court has generally held that, unless a resident gives consent, law enforcement cannot enter a private home without a warrant signed by a judge, which requires the government to present evidence showing probable cause.

“This means that the person inside the home generally does not need to open the door, does not need to talk to the agent, and may ask the agent to put the note under the door or hang it in the window,” Smola said. There are some exceptions, such as if an officer encounters a violent crime in progress, or a person who needs medical care.

Obtaining a warrant takes a long time and is usually reserved for high-priority cases in which people are suspected of crimes beyond immigration violations, Lopez said. “It is much easier for ICE to arrest individuals in public,” she said.

He watches: Immigrant families claim that children in ICE custody face unsafe and unsanitary conditions

In the past, federal immigration officers would not forcibly enter homes if they only had an administrative order issued by ICE itself, without a judge’s approval. Some lower courts have ruled in the past that entering homes without a warrant is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Designated ICE officials have the authority to issue administrative orders. Arrest warrants require “probable cause to believe” that the person named in the arrest warrant is subject to removal. But they are not reviewed by anyone in the judiciary.

The Associated Press reported on January 22 that a leaked ICE memo approved entry into homes without consent using an administrative order alone, as long as a final removal order was issued.

The memo was used to train new ICE officers, and “those still in training are required to follow the memo’s instructions rather than written training materials that actually contradict the memo,” the AP said, citing the whistleblower’s revelation.

The May 12, 2025, memo, signed by acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, said DHS “has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to detain aliens subject to final orders of removal at their place of residence” but added that “DHS’s Office of the General Counsel recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and immigration regulations do not prohibit reliance on administrative warrants for this purpose.”

If the policy were challenged in court, it is unclear whether it would be held constitutional.

What can people do if they believe ICE has violated their Fourth Amendment rights?

If you believe your rights have been violated, potentially causing injury or property loss, your options for filing a claim for compensation are limited.

Unlike many state laws, federal law generally prohibits civil lawsuits against federal officials for violating people’s rights. A 1971 Supreme Court decision briefly relaxed these prohibitions, before tightening them again.

“In one case, the Supreme Court held that people who were illegally excluded from the Social Security disability rolls and left without income could not sue, even though they did not receive due process. In another, the court declared that a man dying of cancer after prison repeatedly denied him any medical care could not sue,” wrote Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, and Bert Newborn, professor emeritus of law at New York University.

There may be an opportunity to file a lawsuit under a different law, the federal Tort Claims Act, said David Rudofsky, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

However, he said plaintiffs will face a major challenge: “It’s not an easy road, and most people can’t afford to hire a lawyer.”