ICE warrants were central to Abbott’s immigration dispute with Texas cities. Here’s how they work.

By Alex Nguyen, The Texas Tribune
May 1, 2026

Three Texas cities recently faced the wrath of Gov. Greg Abbott over policies limiting police cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, particularly when officers encounter administrative warrants issued by the federal agency.

As the Trump administration carries out the president’s promise of aggressive deportations, particularly in a state with an estimated 1.7 million undocumented immigrants, Texans can expect to hear more about administrative warrants, a prominent tool at ICE’s disposal.

Here’s what you need to know about them.

What are administrative warrants?

Unlike criminal warrants that are served by police for arrests and searches, administrative warrants do not require an independent judge’s authorization. Instead, ICE itself issues two types of these civil documents, according to the agency’s FAQ:

• One, known as Form I-205, is based on final deportation orders that typically come from immigration courts, which operate under the U.S. Department of Justice.
• The other, Form I-200, covers people suspected of immigration violations, which are primarily civil offenses. This broad category includes those whose immigration proceedings are still underway and who have not been ordered deported.

How do administrative warrants reach local police?

In February 2025, ICE entered more than 700,000 administrative warrants into the National Crime Information Center, used by law enforcement agencies across the country to collect information about wanted individuals, missing persons, stolen property and other criminal records. This means the warrants can appear during a traffic stop, a disturbance call or other routine police activities.

It was not the first time ICE added its warrants into the federal database, legal experts said, but the scale was notable.

“That is a huge number of warrants to be added to the database,” said Lindsay Nash, co-director of the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic at the Cardozo School of Law in New York.

It’s not clear how many administrative warrants are in the federal system. The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to The Texas Tribune’s questions about this figure.

What are the concerns with administrative warrants?

For legal experts and civil rights groups, their biggest concern with administrative warrants revolves around the Fourth Amendment, which protects against arbitrary arrests and unreasonable searches.

While police must get an independent judge’s approval for criminal warrants, ICE can issue administrative warrants on its own.

“That independence is really, really critical,” said Michael Kagan, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “ICE officers basically don’t have to go to anyone independent to explain why they should be able to arrest and detain someone, and there’s no due process required.”

He also said a police stop based on reasonable suspicion is commonly understood to last around 20 minutes, and officers often need probable cause that a law was broken to hold individuals longer.

“The risk here is that immigration becomes a short circuit around constitutional protections against police abuses,” Kagan said.

DHS defended administrative warrants as an essential tool for immigration enforcement.

“Every illegal alien who DHS serves administrative warrants/I-205s have had full due process and a final order of removal from an immigration judge,” the department said in a statement. “Officers issuing these administrative warrants also have found probable cause.”

Another concern for legal experts and civil rights groups is that some administrative warrants can be outdated, particularly if they remain in the system after immigrants had obtained legal status or received protections from deportation, potentially leading to wrongful detention. DHS didn’t respond to the Tribune’s questions about this issue.

“The fact that a warrant appears in the NCIC does not necessarily mean that that warrant is even still valid,” Nash said. “There have been a lot of errors.”

What happened in Abbott’s fight with Texas cities?

Earlier this year, some Texas cities adopted rules addressing how officers should handle administrative warrants, following high-profile detention cases and subsequent angry demands from residents for better protection against federal agents.

In April, Abbott’s office threatened to withdraw public safety funding from Houston, Dallas and Austin — unless they revised their ICE policies. The cities complied, but their updates varied in scope.

In Houston, which stood to lose more than $110 million, the city council adopted an amended ordinance that says police officers can detain people “as long as reasonably necessary to complete the legitimate purpose of the initial stop or investigation and for other legitimate purposes discovered during the detention.” It also removed language saying administrative warrants do not alone justify a stop or continued detention by police. The city’s attorney said the revisions don’t materially change the ordinance, but civil rights groups said they amounted to a “backdoor repeal.”

Dallas, with over $32 million in grants and more than $55 million in World Cup public safety funding at risk, removed a ban on police officers prolonging a person’s detention during traffic stops or similar encounters until ICE agents could arrive. But there is still language saying officers cannot stop or contact people solely to determine their immigration status.

Austin responded to Abbott’s threat to withdraw $2.5 million by adding language saying officers who encounter an administrative warrant should contact ICE “when operationally feasible” to determine whether the warrant was valid. Officers also shouldn’t take “an unreasonable amount of time assisting on these matters,” the revised policy said. The department’s general orders still ban officers from arresting or detaining people based solely on administrative warrants as well as from “unreasonably” prolonging a lawful detention for ICE.

Are administrative warrants different from the 287(g) program?

The 287(g) program, which has grown significantly during the second Trump administration, allows state and local law enforcement to more actively collaborate with federal agents and take on certain immigration enforcement authority. There are three models, including one that lets officers “serve and execute administrative warrants” on people in their jails and hold them for ICE.

Texas has also played a role in expanding these partnerships. Last year, the state Legislature passed a law requiring sheriffs who run or contract out operations of a jail to take part in the 287(g) program. The law took effect Jan. 1. 

As of April 27, 375 agreements had been signed with state, county and local law enforcement across Texas, according to ICE data. More than 140 agencies have the warrant model, the data shows. Some also hold multiple partnerships, including the task force model that lets officers question individuals about their immigration status during routine police work.

I keep hearing about Senate Bill 4. What is its relevance?

There are actually two Senate Bills 4 relevant to immigration discussions.

The first law, passed in 2017, bans so-called “sanctuary cities” in Texas by barring local governments from adopting policies that prohibit or materially limit immigration enforcement. In addition to Abbott’s funding threats, state officials accused cities last month of violating this SB 4 with their initial ICE warrant policies.

The second law, passed in 2023, made illegal crossings at the southern border a state crime and authorized local law enforcement to arrest people suspected of doing so. Civil rights groups challenged the policy in court, arguing that only Congress can pass immigration laws.

On April 24, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the challenge, determining that the groups didn’t have standing to sue. State leaders cheered the ruling as a win for law and order, while rights groups said it didn’t resolve the underlying question about the constitutionality of the law, which remains blocked until at least May 15.

Although the 2023 version of SB 4 has less to do with administrative warrants, legal experts said confusion around how police should handle interaction with ICE foreshadows difficulties that could arise as officers implement the state law.

“It’ll be very difficult for cities to really decide their own enforcement priorities,” said Denise Gilman, co-director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin. “And there’s going to be significant harm for public safety if local police are going around engaging in deportation efforts, rather than actually addressing public safety concerns of the community.”

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.