ICE agents get green light to make unjustified warrantless arrests

[Nevilledog]

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/ice-warrantless-arrests-castanon-nava

On Wednesday an email landed in the inboxes of all ICE employees with the subject: “Termination of Castañon-Nava Settlement Agreement.” For those unfamiliar, the settlement was the outcome of a class action lawsuit brought by people who had been subjected to unjustified warrantless arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the first Trump administration when now-Border Czar Tom Homan was Deputy Director. The parties involved entered into the agreement in May of 2022 wherein it became nationwide ICE policy that warrantless arrests must be documented in a specific manner to remain in compliance with the law.

The terms of the settlement were given a three year duration, meaning it —by ICE’s definition, at least—expired last month. The email on Wednesday—a copy of which was shared with The Handbasket—was sent by ICE’s Principal Legal Advisor Charles Wall, and it made one thing clear: Agents are no longer constrained by the need to justify their warrantless arrests.

“What they are encouraging is for all the officers to violate the law, and now you don't even have to document it,” Mark Fleming, the Associate Director of Federal Litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) who served as one of the attorneys on the case, told me on Thursday.

In Wall’s email he wrote: “Despite a pending motion to enforce the settlement agreement and a motion to extend the settlement agreement, it remains terminated. Accordingly, I hereby rescind the May 27, 2022, Castañon-Nava Settlement Obligation statement of policy.” Fleming disagreed with ICE’s assessment that the settlement is still terminated in the face of ongoing litigation.

*snip*

[Bluetus]

1. Time to start detaining these masked, unidentified thugs

and putting them in the lockup until they can prove who they are and they actually have legal authority to roam the streets acting like a police force.

Maybe the arrests wouldn't result in conviction, but at least put them in cuffs, confiscate their weapons and put them in the tank for a few days.

[Solly Mack]

2. ...

[yellow dahlia]

3. So much to keep track of right now.

The lawyers who defend our rights and our democracy have their hands full.

[UTUSN]

4. K&R

[stillcool]

5. sad.. the whole nation of laws, not men thing

Fleming called the implications of Wall’s email “a very troubling step to basically permit officers to brazenly violate the law as it is written, in the limits of their authority, to make arrests. And particularly as we're looking at various threats to expand their enforcement in communities, it's very concerning that they're taking a step to lessen the guardrails of their enforcement.”

The reinstatement of the first Trump administration’s policy (or lack thereof) regarding warrantless arrests comes on the heels of an exclusive published by The Guardian last week which quotes emails from top immigration officials instructing agents to “turn the creative knob up to 11” and “push the envelope” when it comes to enforcement. They proposed achieving this by arrested undocumented people they come in contact with by chance, rather than targeted enforcement. That story also mentioned the Trump administration setting a quota of 3,000 immigrants arrested every day. Fleming thinks this massive number could have something to do with the announcements on warrantless arrests.

“I think for folks that don't want to follow the law, it's a free license to make any arrest, irrespective of what limits there might be that Congress has set,” Fleming said. “And even for the others, there's a lot of pressure to make the arrests. And so they're going to cut even more corners.