People Are Not Documents: Texas Court Rules That Administrative Inspection Warrants Cannot Be Used for Immigration Raids of Businesses

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) generally has the administrative inspection authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) to 1) interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien, and 2) arrest that alien if ICE believes that he or she is in violation of any immigration law or regulation and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained for his or her arrest. However, the Act does not give ICE the authority to enter private businesses to carry out its searches, interrogations, or arrests — and that is what it needed a Texas district court’s blessing to do.

On May 27, 2025, Judge Andrew Edison of the Southern District of Texas denied the United States’ application for an administrative inspection warrant to “enter a specific private business located within this district to search for and seize individuals who might be in the United States unlawfully, and to investigate a pattern or practice of employing unauthorized aliens.” He offered three reasons for doing so: 1) the search would be “inherently criminal,” not administrative, because the owner(s) of the business might face criminal penalties for employing individuals without work authorizations; 2) administrative warrants — meant to examine documents or inspect hazards — cannot be used to search for people or investigate crimes; and 3) the warrant was impermissibly styled as a general warrant, which is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. In doing so, Judge Edison distinguished legal precedent that has long supported ICE’s enforcement strategies.

Judge Edison’s Analysis

Judge Edison first addressed the considerable precedent seemingly in the government’s favor. Although the Fourth Amendment requires that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,” in Griffin v. Wisconsin, the Supreme Court allowed for a potential “exception to that prescription for administrative search warrants.” Moreover, Judge Ellison acknowledged that federal regulatory agencies may apply for “Blackie’s warrants” (named after the 1981 D.C. Circuit decision, Blackie’s House of Beef, Inc. v. Castillo, that first approved the granting of such a warrant) — i.e., a warrant to execute the agency’s statutory grant of inspection authority. At least two federal courts of appeal have extended this ruling to federal immigration agents, acting under administrative inspection warrants, to search businesses for undocumented workers and to seize any such individuals found.

However, Judge Ellison cast doubt on the continued validity of Blackie’s warrants. First, when Blackie’s was decided in 1981, there were no sanctions for employers of illegal aliens. It was only in November 1986, with the passing of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, that civil and criminal penalties were introduced for employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants. Thus, even if Blackie’s was correctly decided — and Judge Edison noted that he does not believe it was — it does not apply now that the facts have changed. In these changed circumstances, Rule 41(d)(1) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure governs and provides the procedure for obtaining a warrant to search for and seize a person (as specifically noted in the 1979 advisory committee comment regarding Rule 41(d)(1)).

Finally, Judge Edison proceeded to disabuse the government of any mistaken belief that administrative warrants do not carry the particularity requirements of a Rule 41 warrant. Citing to the Fifth Circuit’s recent ruling in United States v. Smith, Judge Edison reminded the government that geofence warrants, i.e., “reverse warrants” that allow law enforcement to seek suspects by searching a defined geographic area during a specific time period, are unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. General warrants that specify only the offense and leave it to the discretion of the executing officials as to which persons should be arrested and which places should be searched, are also illegal.

Implications

In this particular case, the implications for the government may be minor: Judge Edison noted at the end of his opinion that the government could apply for another type of warrant, and suggested that a particularized Rule 41(d)(1) warrant which targeted specific suspected aliens and a specific employer with sufficient probable cause would likely be approved.

But in the greater context of ICE’s enforcement authority, Judge Edison’s opinion lays the foundation for employers and other businesses to challenge use of administrative inspection warrants as a subterfuge to conduct workplace criminal immigration raids, thereby circumventing the Fourth Amendment.

For questions about this topic, contact the authors of this Blog or any of their colleagues in Arnold & Porter’s White Collar Defense & Investigations practice group.

© Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP 2025 All Rights Reserved. This Blog post is intended to be a general summary of the law and does not constitute legal advice. You should consult with counsel to determine applicable legal requirements in a specific fact situation.