Leaked memo from top DHS official suggests 'no legal barrier' to crack down on protesters [View all]
Source: Raw Story
October 10, 2025 9:36PM ET
A new memo from the Department of Homeland Security authorizes Federal Protective Service officers to leave federal property and, if necessary, enter private homes to “eliminate” threats, including what it describes as an “identified sniper” located blocks away from a federal facility, journalist Marisa Kabas reported Friday in her newsletter The Handbasket.
The internal memo, titled “Federal Protective Service [FPS] Policy and Off-Property Jurisdiction,” was written by DHS Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara and circulated to all FPS personnel on Wednesday by Benjamine Huffman, the DHS Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary for Management, per the report.
Addressing concerns about the legal limits of FPS jurisdiction, Mazzara wrote that such limits “are misplaced,” and that “the limits to FPS’s authority off federal property are the edges of the Constitution on one side and necessity on the other.
Mazzara stated that FPS officers are permitted to respond to incidents even far from federal buildings if a “reasonable nexus” to the protection of federal property exists.
Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/dhs-secretary-noem/
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