During a Wednesday meeting in downtown Scranton, the three members of Lackawanna County’s board of commissioners found themselves in rare agreement on arguably the most divisive issue facing the nation at the dawn of 2026.
Democrat Bill Guaghan urged county Solicitor Paul James Walker to research the role county officials must play — and, by extension, can refuse to execute — when dealing with inquires from agents representing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He posed pressing questions: What policies can be adopted to minimize any collection of county immigration data that ICE might want? Should ICE have access to county facilities? What is the protocol if ICE agents do show up there? Can access be denied to ICE without a judicial warrant, and if so, who can deny those agents that access?
These are procedures previously undiscussed, in our area or anywhere, because they had never been necessary. But, they are valid questions now. It is likely they will be for generations, given the leeway ICE is being handed to enforce President Donald Trump’s policies to rid the nation of undocumented immigrants.
The internal ICE memo from May of 2025 detailing the agency’s new guidance to agents allowing them to enter a residence without a judge-issued warrant is a chilling reminder that government can be more driven to advance its own ambitions than it is to honor our rights as we’ve come to understand them. Further, it’s a suggestion that our rights only go as far as a particular administration’s own interpretation of law.
Let it be understood in this context, then, that all of this applies beyond the immigration issue, encroaching on what agents of the government can do to all of us if someone at the top feels the decision justifiable.
The Constitution is quite clear on the rights government has to do anything on a person’s private property or in their private residences. In short, they are extremely limited, subject to procedure that has been established and defended in courts and reaffirmed there with overwhelming consistency at varying points through the last 237 years.
The rights Americans have to live without fear of warrantless government intrusion on their own private property is addressed often in the Bill of Rights.
For example, the Third Amendment prohibits the government from forcing homeowners to allow soldiers to house themselves during times of peace in private abodes without homeowner consent. Today, it may seem an outdated issue, a relic of mid-18th century frustration over the British Quartering Act, which demanded American colonies to provide housing, food, drink and other necessities to British soldiers who happened to need or want any of it.
Better known, the Fourth Amendment deals more directly with the ICE memo, barring the government from unreasonable search and seizure of an individual or their private property. Combined, those two pillars of the Bill of Rights still rest as the foundation for property rights, personal liberty and the zone of privacy — three ideals on which our forefathers constructed the Constitution.
The ICE memo shows the federal government is willing to question what should be deemed “reasonable,” and more pressing, what constitutes a warrant. In this case, ICE is training its agents to make these arrests with only administrative warrants, which are issued by immigration authorities and authorize arrest, but have never given permission to forcibly enter private homes. Only search or arrest warrants signed by a judge can grant that.
“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 memo signed by the acting ICE director Todd Lyons reads, “the DHS Office of the 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.”
The General Counsel’s decision seems poised for harsh tests in court, where it hopefully will get a passionate attack from those who understand the spirit of the Constitution — and the way it has been implemented to the benefit of the people for centuries in this regard — should trump any parsing of its language.
Changing the rules to ensure victory is an easy way out, but it also brings on its own set of issues. What if ICE agents — or any government representatives waving administrative warrants for that matter — barge into the wrong home? What if innocents are injured? Private citizens caught by surprise are no match for heavily armed, masked agents. The potential for chaos, fear and disaster are far too prevalent.
The procedure has always been clear, backed by the Supreme Court itself: Judicial approval is needed for government agencies to enter a home without consent. If the Constitution needs to say that expressly, steps should be taken to make it that way. Reimagining the intent of the law when it suits government’s interest cannot stand.