Judge Bars Warrantless ICE Arrests In Nation's Capital
Federal Judge Rules ICE Can’t Make Warrantless Arrests Without Probable Cause In DC
Another day, another federal judge is telling the Trump administration its federal agents are violating people’s civil liberties and issuing an order to make them stop.
According to the Associated Press, on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell granted a preliminary injunction barring the administration from making widespread immigration arrests in Washington, D.C., without warrants or probable cause. The injunction came as a result of a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security filed by civil liberties and immigrant rights groups.
From AP:
Officers making civil immigration arrests generally have to have an administrative warrant. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, they may make arrests without a warrant only if they have probable cause to believe the person is in the U.S. illegally and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained, according to Howell’s ruling.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs’ attorneys argued federal officers were frequently patrolling and setting up checkpoints in Washington, D.C., neighborhoods with large numbers of Latino immigrants and then stopping and arresting people indiscriminately.
They provided sworn declarations from people they say were arrested without warrants or a required assessment of flight risk and cited public statements by administration officials that they said showed the administration was not using the probable cause standard.
Honestly, even trusting immigration agents or the Trump administration to be able to discern probable cause and who is or isn’t in the country illegally is problematic. They claim they’re not racially profiling, then fight court battles to allow them to racially profile. In September, U.S. citizens in D.C. filed a class action lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents of “blatant and explicit” racial profiling, accusing agents of snatching Latino citizens up at random from Home Depot parking lots and other places a MAGA-fied bigot might assume brown people who are possibly “illegals” would be. In Chicago, federal Judge Sara L. Ellis recently issued a 200-plus page opinion, citing a series of recorded videos that prove the DHS and its agents are lying about being attacked by protesters in the city in order to justify their use of excessive force.
Speaking of Chicago, in October, Magistrate Judge Jeffrey I. Cummings issued an order against warrantless arrests, similar to that of Judge Howell. Cummings had ruled in favor of plaintiffs in yet another class-action lawsuit against ICE and the Trump administration.
Mind you, last month, a federal judge ordered President Donald Trump and his administration to remove National Guard troops from D.C., ruling the deployment was “unlawful.” That ruling came just days before a gunman shot two Guard troops in D.C., killing one of them, an act Trump seems to be blaming on the Biden administration and brown people across the globe, but not himself, although his administration granted the alleged shooter asylum, and the fact that the Guard troops shouldn’t have been in D.C. in the first place.
Last month, it was announced that hundreds of National Guard troops were set to be removed from Chicago and Portland — where judges have also ruled the deployments were illegal — while the Trump administration appeals the cases.
You just know the Trump administration hates to see a federal judge coming its way. It’s like a fascist, authoritarian, and deeply racist administration can’t even violate people’s civil rights in peace anymore.
Sheesh.
SEE ALSO:
Federal Judge Places Restrictions On ICE Arrests In Chicago
