A former Assistant Chief Immigration Judge explains why ICE's administrative warrant is not signed by any judge
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There is a dangerous misunderstanding circulating in our national discourse — one that reaches the highest levels of our government and media. From media pundits, to the Speaker's lobby, and from the White House briefing room, we often hear that administrative warrants are signed by a judge. This is fundamentally incorrect.
As someone who has presided over thousands of immigration cases and supervised tens of thousands more as the Assistant Chief Immigration Judge in Minnesota, I want to be incredibly clear: I have never signed an administrative warrant. I never had the legal authority to do so. Before my time on the bench, I served as an attorney for ICE. During that tenure, I was never once asked to conduct a legal review of an administrative warrant.
In the immigration system, the "warrant" (Form I-200 or I-205) is an internal agency document.
The recent rash of habeas corpus grants in Minnesota is just the tip of the iceberg. For every individual who successfully petitions a court, there are thousands of others who lack the resources to file. Article III jurisdictional limitations make federal review extremely narrow, and the actual remedies available are even fewer.
Congress has the power to solve many of these issues by requiring that detainers and warrants be reviewed by an independent immigration court. But for that to work, "independent" has to mean more than just a title; it requires a structural firewall between enforcement and adjudication.
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