There are moments in American government when a memo does more damage than a law.

This week, federal immigration agents were informed that their authority to arrest people without a warrant has been expanded. Not by Congress. Not by a court. By an internal reinterpretation of an old statute, quietly circulated inside the agency and reviewed by The New York Times.

For years, the rule was simple, at least on paper. If agents wanted to arrest someone, they needed a warrant unless there was a clear reason to believe the person would flee before one could be obtained. That standard mattered. It forced the government to articulate cause. It required intention. It respected the idea that state power should be specific, justified, and accountable.

That standard is now gone.

Under the new guidance, “likely to escape” no longer means someone evading the law or skipping a hearing. It now means something far more elastic: anyone an agent believes might not stay where they are long enough for paperwork to catch up. Leaving the scene. Walking away. Existing in motion.

Which is to say, everyone.

This is not a clarification. It’s an erasure.

When the government grants itself the power to arrest first and explain later, warrants stop being a safeguard and start being a suggestion. Targeted enforcement becomes generalized suspicion. And the distinction between a lawful arrest and a dragnet disappears behind bureaucratic language that sounds harmless until it isn’t.

We should be clear about what this is and what it isn’t.

It isn’t about border security. It isn’t about prioritizing dangerous individuals. It isn’t about efficiency.

It’s about removing friction.

Friction is what slows the government down long enough for rights to matter. Friction is what forces an agent to justify action before taking it. Friction is the difference between law enforcement and law enforcement theater.

When an internal memo makes warrants optional in practice, the Constitution doesn’t get torn up in public. It just stops being consulted.

And that’s how democracies don’t collapse with a bang. They collapse with an email.