ICE knocks on a door in Brooklyn. A 'traumatic nightmare' follows.

Arya Sundaram

Published Feb 6, 2026

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ICE agents look for someone at a home on Jan. 28, 2026, in Circle Pines, Minnesota. Questions about ICE detention activities are playing out in courtrooms across the country.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Arya Sundaram

Published Feb 6, 2026

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Federal immigration officers, acting without a judicial warrant or consent, entered the Brooklyn home of Hayk Safaryan early one morning last summer, took him into custody and seized his personal documents as well, according to a federal lawsuit challenging the arrest's legality.

Safaryan, 44, an Armenian immigrant who has lived in the United States for more than two decades, was sitting at his computer and eating breakfast when the officers knocked, according to written court testimony from his wife Léah Lazonick. After Safaryan opened the door, the officers asked him for identification, and as Safaryan went to retrieve his wallet, “a heavily armed SWAT team of about six people stormed inside” and detained him.

The pending habeas complaint calls for Safaryan’s release from ICE custody based on several claims, including that the officers illegally entered the home and arrested him in violation of constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the case, among thousands of similar lawsuits challenging immigration arrests across the country.

But the allegations in the Brooklyn arrest come to light amid a flood of controversy over immigration officers’ enforcement actions, including claims where officers have entered homes and other private areas without judicial warrants, which are court orders signed by a judge allowing officers to conduct searches, make arrests or confiscate an individual’s belongings.

An internal ICE memo issued to agents in May, and leaked last month to the Associated Press, authorized agents to forcibly enter homes without residents’ consent or a judicial warrant, guidance that contravenes what civil liberties attorneys say is long-standing Supreme Court precedent governing searches of homes and private property.

Advocacy groups in the Boston area filed a federal lawsuit in January, asking a judge to declare the ICE directive unlawful and order the federal government not to implement it. The lawsuit says, “The memo marks a sharp departure from well-settled Fourth Amendment law, long-standing agency practice, and DHS regulations.”

“ICE’s abuses threaten all of our constitutional rights,” Molly Biklen, legal director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement to Gothamist. “As Trump launches such a serious, highly dangerous attack on due process, it’s critical New Yorkers remember their rights under the Fourth Amendment: you do not have to open your door unless an immigration officer shows you a judicial warrant.”

Trump administration officials have publicly defended the contents of the memo, arguing that immigrants without legal status lack the same constitutional rights as citizens.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, DHS General Counsel James Percival argued that ICE officers can instead forcibly enter immigrants’ homes under the authority of an administrative warrant, which is usually signed by an ICE officer.

Percival said ICE officers only do so when an immigrant has received a final order of removal from an immigration judge, rendering them “fugitives from justice.”

But Democrats are pressing for more constraints, both in Congress and in Albany.

In Congress, a federal spending bill needed to keep DHS operating past Feb. 13 is being held up by Senate Democrats who are demanding further restrictions on federal immigration agents, spurred in part by the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by ICE agents in Minneapolis.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said the party is seeking reforms that include a ban on DHS officers entering private property without a judicial warrant.

In New York state, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a proposal in her State of the State address last month that aims to restrict federal immigration officers from entering so-called “sensitive locations” — such as schools, hospitals, houses of worship, and housing accommodations — without obtaining a judicial warrant.

The bill as written would require such sensitive locations operated by state or local governments to deny ICE agents access to private areas if the officers don't provide a judicial warrant, and allow private entities operating such locations to adopt similar policies.

Gothamist has also uncovered instances of armed ICE officers bypassing the front desk of New York City shelters and entering private areas within shelters without presenting a judicial warrant.

Safaryan has been in federal custody since June.

He was indicted by a grand jury in January 2025 on a charge of grand larceny, accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars for a home renovation project but providing “virtually no work,” according to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.

His lawyer, Michael Wildes, has said in court documents that the charges stem from a contractual dispute, saying Safaryan performed some work but was unable to complete the entire job because he lost his insurance.

Wildes also alleged in court filings that ICE has denied Safaryan due process because he’s been unable to attend several of the hearings in his criminal case while he’s remained in ICE custody. Wildes declined to answer further specific questions about his case.

Safaryan is currently detained at a detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, according to ICE’s online detainee locator. An immigration judge denied him bond in August on the basis that he was a danger to the community, given his pending grand larceny charge.

After federal agents entered Safaryan’s and Lazonick’s apartment on June 16, Lazonick, who was awake but still in bed, opened her bedroom door to find out what was going on. She wrote that a woman in a bulletproof vest pointed a “huge weapon” at her in “a very aggressive manner," and yelled at her to return to the bedroom and close the door.

After about 20 minutes, Lazonick wrote that she mustered the courage to open the door and try to find out what was going on. She asked if the officers had a reason to be in the apartment, who they were, if they were with ICE, and several times, if they had a warrant. But the officers didn’t respond to her questions.

Officers confiscated Safaryan’s driver’s license, Armenian passport, and his social security card, Lazonick wrote, and rifled through the couple’s personal belongings, including their record collection. They also took a folder on the dining room table with documents the couple had compiled for Safaryan’s pending immigration petition as the spouse of a U.S. citizen.

The officers eventually handcuffed Safaryan and escorted him outside into a large black van parked outside the apartment building, Lazonick wrote. Three days after Safaryan was arrested, armed officers in bulletproof vests returned to the couple’s apartment building and rang the buzzer for their residence, according to Lazonick’s testimony.

She said she refused to buzz them inside the building. The agents remained outside the building for about 15 minutes before leaving, she wrote.

“This unexplained return visit to my home, when I was alone and my husband was already detained, was highly disturbing and has left me feeling unsafe in my own apartment,” Lazonick wrote.

In her letter, Lazonick also said her husband was the sole income earner for their family, and that she’s drained her savings to pay for his legal fees. She added that she will likely be evicted from her apartment if he’s not released.

“Our entire community is devastated by his prolonged absence,” she wrote. “My once happy life has turned into the most exhausting, depressing and traumatic nightmare I have ever endured.”

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