Operation Enduring Nuremberg: The Trump Diaspora begins...con carne!

[dps]

I completely agree with Oexmelin's stance on the issue. This is absolutely an issue people should get passionate about.

His stance appears to be that ICE being told to strictly enforce existing laws somehow makes their personnel into thugs.  Are you really in complete agreement with that?

[Valmy]

I completely agree with Oexmelin's stance on the issue. This is absolutely an issue people should get passionate about.

His stance appears to be that ICE being told to strictly enforce existing laws somehow makes their personnel into thugs.  Are you really in complete agreement with that?

You can easily become a thug by enforcing laws, it all depends on how you enforce them.

[Jacob]

You can't help being emo, can you?  If I point out that people are being emo when they insist that officials they don't like are "thugs," you can either take that on board or go even more emo, like here.  I kinda find your taking the second approach more amusing, I'll admit, so keep up the emo if you can.

Are you saying you do not think there's been a change in the way CBP and ICE operates since Trump took over, reports and policy changes notwithstanding?

[grumbler]

Well for one, your stance involves being a dick to Oex. I'm pretty sure Oex's does not.

  True, and another thing is that, of the two of us, only Oex is being a dick to me! 

The biggest difference is that i subscribe to napoleon's dictum that one should "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."  Fighting stupid is harder and less heroic than fighting evil, I will admit.

[grumbler]

Are you saying you do not think there's been a change in the way CBP and ICE operates since Trump took over, reports and policy changes notwithstanding?

There has been no essential change in the way CBP and ICE operates, no.  There has been an increase in enforcement actions, for sure, but they aren't more "thuggish" than they were, insofar as I can tell. 

The problem is not Trumpian malice, but rather that the US government has been hiring (like local governments for police forces) people it wouldn't/shouldn't be hiring, because of the perceived need for more bodies to do the checking.  What we are seeing from CBP is pretty much what we've always seen, just reported in more depth and at a slightly higher tempo.  It is also of a piece with what we've seen from local law enforcement, and for much the same reasons.

[The Larch]

Bad times to be brown in the US...

On Thursday, a Kansas man open fired at a bar in the city of Olathe, killing 32-year-old Srinivas Kuchibhotla and injuring his colleague, 32-year-old Alok Madasani. Both men were Indian immigrants who work in GPS-maker Garmin's aviation department. The gunman also wounded a local American Ian Grillot, 24, who tried to intervene when the man started shooting.

Garmin has a customer service center a mile from the scene of the shooting at Austins Bar and Grill—a joint the two men reportedly frequented.

Five hours after the incident, 51-year-old Adam Purinton was arrested at an Applebee's and charged with one count of premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of attempted premeditated first-degree murder in Johnson County, Kansas, District Attorney Stephen Howe said.

While fleeing, Purinton allegedly told an Applebee's employee that he needed a place to hide because he had killed two Middle Eastern men, the Kansas City Star reported. A bystander at the crime scene recounted the gunman yelling "get out of my country" before attacking the Indian men.

[HVC]

He has a lot of trust in Applebee's to ask a random employee for a hideout spot.

[grumbler]

Bad times to be brown in the US...

On Thursday, a Kansas man open fired at a bar in the city of Olathe, killing 32-year-old Srinivas Kuchibhotla and injuring his colleague, 32-year-old Alok Madasani. Both men were Indian immigrants who work in GPS-maker Garmin's aviation department. The gunman also wounded a local American Ian Grillot, 24, who tried to intervene when the man started shooting.

Garmin has a customer service center a mile from the scene of the shooting at Austins Bar and Grill—a joint the two men reportedly frequented.

Five hours after the incident, 51-year-old Adam Purinton was arrested at an Applebee's and charged with one count of premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of attempted premeditated first-degree murder in Johnson County, Kansas, District Attorney Stephen Howe said.

While fleeing, Purinton allegedly told an Applebee's employee that he needed a place to hide because he had killed two Middle Eastern men, the Kansas City Star reported. A bystander at the crime scene recounted the gunman yelling "get out of my country" before attacking the Indian men.

It was an even worse time back when it happened. 

[Syt]

It was an even worse time back when it happened. 

It was a worse time to be a brown person in the U.S. last Thursday than it is today?

[grumbler]

It was an even worse time back when it happened. 

It was a worse time to be a brown person in the U.S. last Thursday than it is today?

For those brown people, yes. Since Purinton is in custody, it is arguably better today.

[Ed Anger]

He has a lot of trust in Applebee's to ask a random employee for a hideout spot.

At least he didn't flee to TGIFridays. Barf.

[citizen k]

Papers, Please
Garrett Epps Feb 27, 2017
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/papers-please/517887/

American citizens had their introduction to the Trump-era immigration machine Wednesday, when Customs and Border Protection agents met an airliner that had just landed at New York's JFK airport after a flight from San Francisco. According to passenger accounts, a flight attendant announced that all passengers would have to show their "documents" as they deplaned, and they did. The reason for the search, Homeland Security officials said, was to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a search for a specific immigrant who had received a deportation order after multiple criminal convictions. The target was not on the flight.

After days of research, I can find no legal authority for ICE or CBP to require passengers to show identification  on an entirely domestic fight. The ICE authorizing statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1357, provides that agents can conduct warrantless searches of "any person seeking admission to the United States"—if, that is, the officer has "reasonable cause to suspect" that the individual searched may be deportable. CBP's statute, 19 U.S.C. § 1467, grants search authority "whenever a vessel from a foreign port or place or from a port or place in any Territory or possession of the United States arrives at a port or place in the United States." CBP regulations, set out at 19 C.F.R. § 162.6, allow agents to search "persons, baggage, and merchandise arriving in the Customs territory of the United States from places outside thereof."

I asked two experts whether I had missed some general exception to the Fourth Amendment for passengers on a domestic flight. After all, passengers on flights entering the U.S. from other countries can expect to be asked for ID, and even searched. Barry Friedman, the Jacob D. Fuchsberg professor of law and affiliated professor of politics at New York University, is the author of Unwarranted: Policing Without Permission, a new book-length study of intrusive police investigation and search practices. "Is this remotely constitutional?" he asked. "I think it isn't. We all know generally the government can't come up and demand to see identification." Officers need to have statutory authority to search and reasonable suspicion that the person to be searched has violated the law, he said. Andre Segura, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, told me that "I'm not aware of any aviation exception" for domestic passengers.

An ID check is a "search" under the law. Passengers on the JFK flight were not "seeking admission"—the flight originated in the U.S. CBP officials told the public after the fact that they were looking for a specific individual believed to be on board. A search for a specific individual cannot include every person on a plane, regardless of sex, race, and age. That is a general paper check of the kind familiar to anyone who has traveled in an authoritarian country. As Segura told me, "We do not live in a 'show me your papers' society."

I asked a CBP spokesperson what legal authority the agency could show for the search. In response, the spokesperson said:

    'In this situation, CBP was assisting ICE in locating an individual possibly aboard the flight that was ordered removed from the United States pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act. To assist ICE, CBP requested consensual assistance from passengers aboard the flight to determine whether the removable individual in question was in fact aboard the flight. In the course of seeking this assistance, CBP did not compel any of these domestic passengers to show identification. With much-appreciated cooperation from these passengers, CBP was able to resolve the issue with minimal delay to the traveling public.'

It's quite legal for law enforcement to ask for "voluntary" cooperation. Anyone who follows criminal-procedure cases, however, knows that "voluntary" in legalese does not mean what ordinary people think it means. Supreme Court caselaw makes clear that officers may block an exit and ask for ID or permission to search. They aren't required to tell the individual stopped that he or she may refuse, and they have every incentive to act as if refusal may result in arrest. The Supreme Court held in 1984 that "while most citizens will respond to a police request, the fact that people do so, and do so without being told they are free not to respond, hardly eliminates the consensual nature of the response." Passengers deplaning after a long flight might reasonably fear they will be "detained" if they anger the law enforcement figure blocking their exit. That officer is under no obligation to tell them they can refuse.

I am a white, English-speaking law professor, affluent, privileged, articulate, and a native-born citizen. Such hair as I have is white and I can hardly seem like a threat to anyone. I have researched the matter, and feel reasonably confident that an agent would have to let me pass if I refused the demand for my papers. If not, I can afford counsel and my family knows excellent lawyers to call.

I am vowing here and now not to show papers in this situation. I know that it will take gumption to follow through if the situation arises. What will be the reaction of ordinary travelers, some with outstanding warrants or other legal worries? Should we expect heroism of people who just want to get off an airplane?

Justice William O. Douglas once wrote that a regime of liberty includes "freedom from bodily restraint or compulsion, freedom to walk, stroll, or loaf."

A shadow is falling over that freedom, both for aliens and for citizens. Its loss will be devastating.

[LaCroix]

my god, reading the last two pages... some people really think trump is basically mordor, corrupting into fascism everything he touches. no actual arguments, just spouted fears based on a misunderstanding of the US population and, more importantly, US government

[Valmy]

my god, reading the last two pages... some people really think trump is basically mordor, corrupting into fascism everything he touches. no actual arguments, just spouted fears based on a misunderstanding of the US population and, more importantly, US government

Well I mean we are just going by his campaign promises mostly.

[LaCroix]

trump's campaign message wasn't "let's make america fascist!" certain groups/people would have you believe that, but those are ridiculous arguments coming from "bush = hitler!" types. it's the same damn thing all over again, with the same people (+ new generation!) involved.