Two explosive stories this week reveal how the Department of Justice and its allied political forces are undermining judicial independence and constitutional checks on law enforcement.
1. House Leadership Backs Impeaching Federal Judges
House Speaker Mike Johnson publicly announced support for impeaching federal judges whose rulings block the Trump administration’s agenda. Johnson signaled he is “for it” when asked about impeachment resolutions targeting at least two judges accused by senators of “egregious abuses” of power. The push is centered on judges who have issued orders adverse to the administration’s immigration and other policies. Pretty troubling.
This isn’t just rhetorical bluster — Legislators have introduced resolutions against judges like James Boasberg and Deborah Boardman, and Johnson’s willingness to embrace impeachment raises the specter of legislative retaliation for judicial rulings, undermining the separation of powers that anchors our constitutional system.
2. ICE Can Enter Homes Without Judicial Warrants
Across the law enforcement landscape, another alarming shift is unfolding: an internal ICE memo disclosed this week authorizes Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to forcibly enter private homes without a judge-signed warrant, using only an administrative immigration document for individuals with final deportation orders. This breaks with long-standing Fourth Amendment norms requiring a judicial warrant for residential entries and seizures.
Whistleblowers say the memorandum, drafted in May 2025, is being used to train new ICE officers, even though it conflicts with previous training that limited administrative warrants to public arrests. Critics contend this policy effectively instructs agents to bypass constitutional safeguards, and legal challenges are already brewing.
Orin Kerr has a lengthy post explaining the law here.
Who is going to stand up for our judges and our Constitution?
9 comments:
If an individual for whom there is a valid arrest warrant or removal order is removed from a private dwelling or vehicle without a warrant but nothing other than the person has been seized, what is the issue? If there are people in the dwelling for whom there is no warrant and they are arrested, they have a very valid false arrest/imprisonment case against the officers. Even if there is no warrant, a fugitive who is captured during an illegal search has not standing to challenge his arrest. The illegal search and seizure does not vitiate the fact that there is an arrest warrant for him.
There is really only one government official that needs to be impeached...
Oh cool, luckily the government is always right so if we give them the power to unconstitutionally enter private homes they will only do so when the occupants are in fact here illegally and thus will have no damages or standing. Nothing to worry about at all.
A valid arrest warrant and an order of removal are two completely different things. You don’t get to bust my door in because an administrative immigration judge has issued an order against someone you think might be inside. #4thamendment
I respectfully disagree with 6:49. Let's say an officer stops a car with no probably cause. He searches the car, again no PC, and finds 5 lbs of cocaine and an illegal immigrant in the back seat who has a removal order outstanding. The dope is impounded and the illegal deported. The government decides not to prosecute because of a bad search. Under what legal theory does the poor mule not get deported? The government is under no obligation to return the cocaine to the now former arrestee and under the same theory, under no obligation to return an illegal immigrant to the streets.
Um 6:49 was about not entering someone’s home without a judicial warrant.
Does not matter if it is a house or a vehicle or a storage shed. If a warrantless/illegal search is conducted and contraband and/or illegal immigrants are seized, law enforcement does not return to the status quo ante. The legality of the search does not affect the legality of what was seized. It may be suppressed in a criminal prosecution. What other remedy could there possible be: let the illegal walk out of jail only to be apprehended again as he buys a hot dog from a vendor outside of the local lockup?
So, in other words, you’re saying the government should conduct illegal searches into homes and vehicles that result in the arrest of a person with a removal order (not a mule, not an illegal, but a person) because there is no remedy for that person?
Just because the person most harmed by the illegal search ("the illegal" discovered in the home) lacks an adequate remedy under the law does not make the search lawful or the actions of those executing the search proper. Indeed, courts will and should intervene when there is a clear policy of executing unlawful searches like you're proposing here. And the officers/agents executing and AUSAs authorizing the searches should be subject to discipline if they are implementing a strategy specifically designed to violate the constitutional protections afforded to the homeowner or others whose rights are harmed by this strategy. The fact that the drugs are forfeited and the person is deported do not absolve the "original sin" in the hypothetical you posit.
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