As ICE’s presence increases, make sure to know your rights
From having a safety plan in place, to learning the difference between types of warrants, here's how to protect yourself and your loved ones
An anti-ICE and anti-Trump protest in Minneapolis on Dec. 25, 2025.
Alejandro Diaz Manrique/Shutterstock.com
Words by Andy Crump
When Mark Dion, mayor of Portland, Maine, and Carl Sheline, mayor of Lewiston, Maine, received word of incoming ICE—and not the kind the Pine Tree State expects every winter season—they both put out press releases emphasizing the same urgent message to their constituents: “Know your rights.” They did not, however, emphasize the rights themselves, or provide a breakdown of what rights Maine residents have in potential encounters with masked paratroopers ransacking their homes.
We here at JoySauce are happy to fill the gap.
Grant that all anyone needs to learn their rights as ICE’s multi-state tour continues is to perform a basic Google search. Grant also that ICE is incapable of occupying even small but major metropolitan areas like Minneapolis without meeting resistance from pissed off Americans. (This, for absolute clarity, does nothing to offset the horrific tragedy of the murders of Rene Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, Keith Porter in Los Angeles, Parady La in Philadelphia, Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres in Houston, Geraldo Lunas Campos and Victor Manuel Diaz in El Paso, Texas, Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz in Indio, California, and Heber Sanchez Dominguez in Clayton County, Georgia.)
Erstwhile U.S. Border Patrol “commander-at-large” Greg Bovino’s expulsion from Minnesota to his masters at the Lollipop Guild is encouraging, and likewise the possibility of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s subsequent impeachment. Even as we speak, ICE is winding down its operations in Maine. This is both a reason to celebrate, but no reason at all to assume that ICE’s nationwide terror campaign will slow down, much less cease. In fact, it’s essential now more than ever to keep pressuring the Republican administration, lest they use Bovino’s departure and Noem’s all-but-guaranteed ouster as appeasement for their opposition; therefore, it’s equally critical for the people to learn their rights, and in knowing their rights, continue pushing back against state-sponsored white nationalist totalitarian violence.
To start:
Establish safety plans
This isn’t about rights, per se, but about preparing for the worst. ICE is effectively orphaning children by snatching their parents away and shipping them to facilities out of state. It goes without saying that this is unconscionable and traumatic. Make a plan for your child’s protection and custody, and encourage fellow parents to do the same.
Rather than rely on your phone’s contacts list to do it for you, memorize important phone numbers: friends, family, emergency contacts, and especially for parents, your children’s daycare and or school. Submit emergency contacts to administrators to pick up your child should you be detained by ICE; also authorize consent, so said contact can make medical and legal decisions for your child. Last of all, pass along ICE’s online detainee locator to the people close to you, in the event of your arrest.
Shut the f*ck up
There is power in silence. As in your exchanges with local law enforcement, you have the right to remain silent when ICE wants to chitchat. Thus, by law, you are not required to spill about your immigration or citizenship status if a man in tactical cosplay procured by Temu asks about either. Any good lawyer will tell you to keep your mouth shut. Don’t talk to them about the day you’re having, what sports teams you support, your personal belief structure, or your holiday plans.
There is an exception here: if you are not yet a U.S. citizen, the ACLU does advocate that you provide any immigration documents that you do have if an agent asks for them.
Read the warrant
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects citizens and non-citizens alike from unreasonable searches and seizures. In short, law enforcement entities, including federal immigration officers, must secure a warrant before they’re legally able to either search someone’s property or arrest them. (They don’t need a warrant to detain people in public, of course.)
Specifically, criminal warrants allow police officers and ICE agents to arrest people in their residences or private spaces—not administrative warrants, which allow for the arrest of individuals but bar officers and agents from entering those spaces.
If ICE comes to your door holding a mere administrative warrant, you have the right to refuse them entry onto private property. You don’t even have to open the door. In fact? You should not open the door, and instruct any children living in or occupying the home to do the same. Form I-200, ICE’s civil administrative warrant, is signed by ICE officers, not by judges, and only a criminal warrant signed by a judge permits ICE entry into your home. Like all official bureaucratic documents, the former and the latter look like pieces of paper with words on them, but there are key differences between them that are worth committing to memory.
The differences between a court warrant and an ICE warrant.
Courtesy of ASAP
Note that a week or so back, a memo circulated that empowered ICE officers to enter homes sans a judge’s warrant. They do not legally have this authority just because they say they do. The memo is equivalent to a child baldly plucking an extra cookie out of the pantry against parental proscriptions. Just like this hapless parent and the misbehaved (but very cute) kid, your options for dealing with ICE when ICE goose steps over the constitution amount to “slim to none.”
When ICE stops you in public
Because we do not enjoy such protections in public places, the protocol for reacting to ICE in such places is stringent. Your most important action in these situations is to stay calm. Don’t run away, don’t argue with the agents, and certainly don’t resist. While it’s deeply unfair and unjust that people shouldn’t speak up when their rights are being blatantly trampled, the outcome of a struggle is almost guaranteed to be violent, as we’ve witnessed in the last few weeks.
So: Keep your hands visible. Don’t make sudden movements. If you need to reach into your pocket or your car’s glove compartment for papers, say so first. Do not lie about your status, and for the love of god, don’t hand over forged documents to ICE, either. You’re already in a bind. Don’t do anything to make it worse.
If you’re subject to a traffic stop, you should ask the officer if they’re from the police or immigration. Remember, if an ICE agent identifies themselves as “police,” they’re lying. Also ask them if they’re from ICE or from Customs and Border Protection (CBP); there’s a difference, even if the difference reads as trivial. (CBP agents are restricted to working around the country’s ports of entry and international borders.)
You do have more freedom in response when you see ICE agents nearby, before they pounce on you like slavering hyenas. First: move to an indoor space. Once again, this is about the warrant; an ICE agent can saunter into a public-facing area, a’la a restaurant’s dining room or a retail store’s aisles, without a warrant, just like anyone else, but they’re likewise not entitled to stop, question, or detain people in those areas without a warrant, either—not without probable cause or reasonable suspicion. If ICE accosts you in an area like this, ask if you’re under arrest or free to leave. If you’re not under arrest, leave.
Last of all, if you’re a U.S. citizen and you see ICE activity in public, record everything. It’s your duty as a citizen. Pull out your phone or a pen and paper. Either way, capture what you witness, and take care to stay out of ICE’s way as you do. It can’t be overstated that the video evidence of Good’s and Pretti’s slayings play key roles in the public outcry and political consequences facing the Republican administration and its cabal of ghouls. Without those clips, ICE might still be in Maine. They might be working toward a long-term settlement of Minneapolis instead of a drawdown plan, even an opaque drawdown plan. They might even have proliferated rapidly beyond those regions and into countless other blue American cities. They’re withdrawing, though, and a great deal of credit for that should go to the brave souls who had the presence of mind to film the horrifying events of Jan. 7 and Jan. 24.
A sobering footnote: laws are great, but neither President Donald Trump’s regime nor ICE show regard for the law. Even if you do everything right, ICE believes itself empowered to act against the rules. But the rules matter and your rights matter. ICE is following another playbook from the rest of us, but that’s all the more reason to know the playbook, and know your rights; this is how we preserve them against tyranny.
Published on February 2, 2026
Words by Andy Crump
Bostonian culture journalist Andy Crump covers movies, beer, music, fatherhood, and way too many other subjects for way too many outlets, perhaps even yours: Paste Magazine, Inverse, The New York Times, Hop Culture, Polygon, and Men's Health, plus more. You can follow him on Bluesky and find his collected work at his personal blog. He’s composed of roughly 65 percent craft beer.