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Comment by dionian | Hacker News Reader

according to this story, they had a warrant: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/23/ice-...

According to the story you linked, they claim they had a warrant but the judge and other staff say the warrant was never presented.

Further, ICE has a habit of lying about this. They refer to the documents they write as "administrative warrants", which are not real judicial warrants and have no legal standing at all. So when ICE says they presented a warrant it's important to dig in and see if it was one of their fake ones.

Here's an article about that last point from the same source you used: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/2025/04/23/what-is...

note that ICE often attempts to treat administrative warrants as judicial warrants, and it's unclear from this reporting what they actually had

[edit: it was an administrative warrant, not an _actual_ judicial warrant]

So just as valid as a piece of scratch paper with "WARANT" scrawled on it with a crayon.

Writing "WARANT" in crayon on a piece of scratch paper will not give you the authority to detain someone who is in the country illegally. It is my understanding that a valid ICE administrative warrant gives an ICE officer the authority to detain the person named on the warrant. And in cases like the one in question where ICE has ample time to get the warrant, it is my understanding that an ICE officer without the warrant would not have the authority to detain someone who is in the country illegally.

What the ICE warrant doesn't give is the authority to conduct a search of private property without permission. Which the agents in this case were not attempting to do.

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