How Democrats’ demands for judicial warrants in immigration enforcement would decimate deportation agenda

Democrats are pressing to require the Department of Homeland Security to use judicial warrants for immigration arrests and home entries, a change that current and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say would hamstring Trump administration‘s deportation agenda.

While Democratic leaders frame their proposals as a civil liberties safeguard, immigration enforcement veterans warn that it would collapse the administrative warrant system that underpins nearly all ICE arrests. The push has become the central pressure point in the looming fight over Department of Homeland Security funding, with Democrats using the threat of a partial government shutdown to force policy concessions they have been unable to pass on the merits.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, including one wearing a ‘NOT ICE’ face covering, walk near their vehicles, Thursday,