AP reported recently that an internal ICE memo being used to train new ICE thugs declares that they can smash their way into private homes without the need for a judicial warrant required by the 4th Amendment.
All they need, according to the DHS Office of the General Counsel (in other words, DHS's own lawyer) is an administrative arrest warrant issued by the agency for someone with a final order of removal and the Constitution is totally cool with it.
What could go wrong? Oh, wait....
This news came out in the immediate wake of the case of American citizen ChongLy "Scott" Thao, the man who was dragged out of his home in St. Paul in his underwear in freezing temperatures after ICE secret police thugs smashed their way in with no warrant, screaming and pointing guns at his family. (And because of a delay in posting this clearly before the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.)
The Tonton Macoute (I keep telling you: Look it up!) wannabes were supposedly after "two convicted sex offenders." In other words, it went just like the memo described and "we don't need no stinking (actual proper) warrant."
Sadly, the AP meekly described the memo as "a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches." This is no "reversal of guidance" as if it's a matter of opinion or worse, convenience, and the agency is not to "respect" such limits, it is to obey them.
What this is, is an immoral, illegal, improper, infuriating rejection of a base Constitution principle on the sanctity of the home that dates back in English law to at least the early 1600s and can even be found to date from ancient Rome.
Our 4th Amendment protections have already been undermined and restricted (for example to the point that your car is often referred to as a "4th Amendment-free zone") but this is not just a bright red line, it's a line of flashing beacons and blaring klaxons.
In an earlier version of the story, one that got updated while I was first writing this, the AP reported that ICE agents sometimes wait hours for a targeted person to leave a house. Apparently we are now to accept that the Constitution must yield because their constitution cannot bear such a burden.
All they need, according to the DHS Office of the General Counsel (in other words, DHS's own lawyer) is an administrative arrest warrant issued by the agency for someone with a final order of removal and the Constitution is totally cool with it.
What could go wrong? Oh, wait....
This news came out in the immediate wake of the case of American citizen ChongLy "Scott" Thao, the man who was dragged out of his home in St. Paul in his underwear in freezing temperatures after ICE secret police thugs smashed their way in with no warrant, screaming and pointing guns at his family. (And because of a delay in posting this clearly before the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.)
The Tonton Macoute (I keep telling you: Look it up!) wannabes were supposedly after "two convicted sex offenders." In other words, it went just like the memo described and "we don't need no stinking (actual proper) warrant."
Sadly, the AP meekly described the memo as "a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches." This is no "reversal of guidance" as if it's a matter of opinion or worse, convenience, and the agency is not to "respect" such limits, it is to obey them.
What this is, is an immoral, illegal, improper, infuriating rejection of a base Constitution principle on the sanctity of the home that dates back in English law to at least the early 1600s and can even be found to date from ancient Rome.
Our 4th Amendment protections have already been undermined and restricted (for example to the point that your car is often referred to as a "4th Amendment-free zone") but this is not just a bright red line, it's a line of flashing beacons and blaring klaxons.
In an earlier version of the story, one that got updated while I was first writing this, the AP reported that ICE agents sometimes wait hours for a targeted person to leave a house. Apparently we are now to accept that the Constitution must yield because their constitution cannot bear such a burden.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment