US FEDERAL immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, it was reported on Wednesday.

This further descent into authoritarianism in the United States is revealed in an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) memo and is a reversal of longstanding guidance meant to ensure respect for constitutional limits on government searches.

The memo authorises Ice officers to use force to enter a residence on the sole basis of an administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that campaigners say conflicts with fourth amendment protections and overturns years of advice given to immigrant communities.

The shift coincides with President Donald Trump’s administration dramatically expanding immigration arrests nationwide, deploying thousands of officers in a mass deportation campaign.

For years, immigrant rights campaigners, legal aid groups and local governments have urged people not to open their doors to immigration agents unless they are shown a warrant signed by a judge. 

That guidance is rooted in Supreme Court rulings that generally prohibit law enforcement officers from entering a home without judicial approval.

 The Ice directive directly undercuts that advice.

The memo itself has not been widely shared within the agency, according to a whistleblower’s complaint, but its contents have been used to train new Ice officers.

New recruits and those still in training are being told to follow the memo’s guidance instead of written training materials that contradict the memo, according to the whistleblower’s disclosure.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press that everyone the department serves with an administrative warrant has already had “full due process and a final order of removal.”

She said the officers issuing such warrants had also found probable cause for the person’s arrest.