Judge Tells Border Officers (Again!) That They Can’t Arrest Migrants Without Real Warrants
from the law-is-the-law,-losers dept
The courts keep pounding the nails home. What this government is engaged in is illegal, on multiple levels. If you subtract the pro-MAGA Fifth Circuit and 6/9ths of the Supreme Court, you have a judicial quorum that says rights are still rights, despite this administration’s claims otherwise.
DHS has issued memos claiming (without facts or law in evidence) that officers can arrest people and enter homes without signed judicial warrants. This has always been false. And it’s not edging any closer to the truth no matter what this administration might say in Truth Social posts and/or court filings.
The administration is losing repeatedly in its bigoted war on non-whites. But it never accepts obvious defeat. It always heads back to court, full of steam and bullshit. And, in most cases, its losses are even more obvious the second time around.
A federal judge in California found on Wednesday that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials had violated a previous order regarding warrantless arrests, and ordered agents operating in her judicial district to fully document their reasons for making any future stops.
The judge, Jennifer L. Thurston of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of California, had previously found that immigration operations in Kern County, Calif., appeared to have been based on racial profiling, with agents making arrests when people they stopped could not produce proof of citizenship on the spot. Last year, she restricted the agency from continuing to carry out random immigration sweeps in the region, citing a “pattern and practice of agents performing detentive stops without reasonable suspicion.”
On Wednesday, Judge Thurston found that border agents appeared to have violated that order when they carried out an immigration sweep last year in a Home Depot parking lot in Sacramento.
The opinion [PDF] doesn’t cut corners or grant Trump’s DOJ more respect than it has earned. (It’s running in the red at the moment.) Multiple people who were arrested following a “targeted” operation, that saws mostly involved federal officers waiting in a Home Depot parking lot in hopes of rounding up day laborers, sued the government. The government has already lost once. This order clearly explains why the government is losing twice. Pretending conjecture is the same thing as established facts does nothing more than inform the court that you suck at your job.
The surveillance two days earlier somewhat contributes to understanding the statistical relationship, revealing that on one prior occasion, two out of a group of 20 individuals gathered in that location were noncitizens (roughly 10%). Yet, that statistic, which leaves the remaining 90% of the group unclassified, does little to dispel the concern that seeking work as a day laborer may be “[a] characteristic common to both legal and illegal immigrants.” See Manzo-Jurado, 457 F.3d at 937. Nor does it demonstrate that the Home Depot parking lot is used “predominantly” by noncitizens seeking day labor work.33 See id. at 936. Rather, the present record reveals little more than that the Home Depot parking lot is “a location . . . frequented by illegal immigrants, but also by many legal residents, [which] is not significantly probative to an assessment of reasonable suspicion.”
Yep. Fuck your “Kavanaugh stops.” Probable cause has never been “wow, they look kinda Mexican.” Hanging around places where you have a [checks government’s claims in support of its actions] 10% chance of catching illegal immigrants isn’t “probable.” It’s an inadvertent admission that you might be wrong 90% of the time.
The upshot of the ruling is this: The government needs to provide individualized reasonable suspicion, if not actual probable cause, to arrest migrants in California. The court does grant some concessions this DOJ definitely hasn’t earned, but at least it adds some guardrails:
The Court declines to preclude Defendants from using “boilerplate” when documenting stops and/or arrests pursuant to the PI Order and this clarification. However, Defendants are cautioned that copy and paste language may give rise to an inference that an individualized assessment was not made.
In short, if the government wants to claim its anti-migrant arrests are supported by reasonable suspicion and/or probable cause, it needs to show its work. And if the only work it can show has been cribbed from other cases, it should expect its overtures to be rejected by the court.
While this may not seem like much, it is at least worth the paper it’s printed on. The Trump administration seems incapable of flooding the zone at this point. It ran out of energy (and personnel) barely over a year into its unexpected resurrection. The DOJ no longer has enough lawyers to do everything the administration demands of it, much less press the dubious “but I’m a king tho” assertions Trump seems to feel it should be doing day in and day out.
Running a fast-break offense and a bet-you-miss defense only works until it doesn’t. The courts are delivering a counter-flood and the DOJ doesn’t have enough loyalists left to overpower the full-court press. The administration is headed towards an institutional collapse because whatever can be considered the “center” of this whirlpool of bigoted fuckwits will never hold. We’ll take every win we can get until we can finally celebrate the demise of a president who seems to think he’s the King George incarnation that makes his voter base so erect it will vote against its own interests.
Filed Under: 4th amendment, border patrol, cbp, dhs, doj, ice, mass deportation, trump administration
Comments on “Judge Tells Border Officers (Again!) That They Can’t Arrest Migrants Without Real Warrants”
Boy, these judges sure are making it hard on DHS officers. Next, they’ll expect the officers to ask questions first. So unfair!
Is it though?
“While this may not seem like much, it is at least worth the paper it’s printed on.”
In what way? All I’ve seen so far is the Robin Williams quote: “Stop! Or I’ll say stop again!”
No penalties have yet been imposed for breaching any court orders. Which on the available evidence are just weak suggestions at this point.
Re:
YUP, False Arrest is fundamentally Assault and Kidnapping — Felonies !
but our judges and courts are generally conditioned to grant any LEOs automatic informal dispensation from normal law application.
Judges and LEOs are all on the same ‘Government’ team and they value teamwork highly, above the rule of law.
Suggestion
The things that happen WHILE you are in Jail.
If we Protect those being HELD.
Lost wages
Lost Jobs
Lost Housing
No bills paid
Lost medical
Lost Child care
Lost State services.
Lost Vehicles
On and on. ALL should be Frozen until the person can get EVERYTING BACK.
Think of Marijuana, and federal Gun license.
Its Still listed as Sch 1. And if there is Any around the area of a weapon, the nearest persons can end up in Jail for 15 years, Federal time. Even tho 80% of the USA has declared it LEGAL.
AND even the Judges in the 5th district are Dropping Such Charges.
For all the time “IN THE SYSTEM”, what is being lost Due to Stupid laws NOT FIXED OR ADJUSTED.
Either bring down the hammer or just let them have your chair at this poin
A federal judge in California found on Wednesday that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials had violated a previous order regarding warrantless arrests, and ordered agents operating in her judicial district to fully document their reasons for making any future stops.
If your response as a judge to someone blatantly violating your last order is to shake your finger at them and tell them that while you’re not handing out any penalties you are telling them to document how they’re violating your order going forward all you’re showing is how impotent you and by extension the legal system is.
It’s hardly a surprise that the regime feels so confident and safe in flipping off judges across the country when judges bend over backwards to show that they, and again by extension the legal system deserve the contempt and disdain they’re getting.
the difference between "can" and "should"
When us poors violate a court order, the courts are perfectly happy to send literal bounty hunters after us. But don’t worry, I’m sure if the government violates a few (hundred) more court orders, the judge will move from conciliatory letters all the way to sternly worded letters. Maybe even a slight finger wag.
Probably not though.
"The administration is headed towards an institutional collapse"
That’s the goal, though, isn’t it?
Seems to me, Trump doesn’t care about any of this stuff. Same goes for all of his billionaire backers. Everybody on the street is so far below them, we don’t even register. And it has nothing to do with where any particular person was born, their citizenship, or immigration status, or the color of their skin.
To Trump, it’s all just noise to control the conversation & keep the opposition busy. If the courts ever manage to stop the whole thing, he’ll just move on to some new issue of the moment.
The goal was always to gut the DOJ so these folks can do whatever they want with impunity. You said it yourself, Tim: “The DOJ no longer has enough lawyers…”
To much to late
“The administration is losing repeatedly in its bigoted war on non-whites. But it never accepts obvious defeat”
I really love how the USA is Behind the rest of the World on Personal rights and WHO GETS THEM.
Then WHO is training our police force.
As with the BIBLE, it is mentioned SOMEWHERE that our constitution is FOR EVERYONE.
Which had to be debated and Stipulated EVEN in the 1960’s with Equal rights Amendment.
AND then ENFORCED. For those that dont understand this. Being Female in the USA before 1973, Ment you HAD not rights to Land ownership, or EVEN to RENT a house, WITHOUT YOUR HUSBAND. And Divorce for Females MENT you were going to end up on the streets, as you GOT NOTHING of the husbands money, and Probably NONE of your own returned.
As for Anyone NOT WHITE. Which is strange to say, the the EU and western side of the Middle EAST were Fairly Integrated UNTIL the POPES wanted Jerusalem back. There were Many races around in the EU, until that time. Even Shakespeare mentions a few black people in his plays.
Just cause a group Ran off with the Jewish Bible to Rome and Created the Christian religion, Which Splintered off the about 60-200 Different Sects. That Could NOT get along. Even they dont Understand that “God created everything”. Means something.
I LOVE showing Christians that Muslims are treating women as the Bible suggests.
Then you wonder that the USA has about 60% religious, and the EU is Under 30%.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
They can, in fact, arrest Illegals with just an administrative warrant. That is established law.
The judge is being lawless and ruling outside their jurisdiction. They’re just ignoring the law. (and president, and SCOTUS instructions for that matter)
Re:
No it isn’t.
And when you have bad actors repeatedly performing bad actions, even in the face of judicial orders, further judicial orders may modify or restrain even well-established (nominalky) lawful activity when it is beind executed in an unlawful manner.
But siince we’re in the zone: What law grants these Brownshirts qualified immunity? (Spoiler: The answer is none.)