ICE has absolutely no business in state courthouses. The federal interest in enforcing immigration law should not be placed above the state's interest in enforcing equal protection under the law. Consider the case of a undocumented rape victim. Do they not deserve justice? Are we better off letting a rapist go free when their victim cannot testify against them because they were deported? I think not and I do not want to live in that society.
* Police interactions, unless you want people refusing to cooperate with police.
* Hospitals, unless you want people refusing to seek medical care for communicable diseases.
* Courtrooms, unless you want people to skip court or refuse to testify as witnesses.
My wife likes watching murder investigation TV shows. Sometimes the homicide detectives will talk to petty criminals like street-level drug dealers, prostitutes, and the like. The first thing the detectives do is assure them that they're there about a murder and couldn't care less about the other minor stuff. They're not going to arrest some guy selling weed when they want to hear his story about something he witnessed.
Except that's TV and police often nail petty criminals for petty crimes in the process of larger investigations and they wonder why they get so little public support and cooperation.
A sane argument against an insane position. Republicans are perfectly fine with unpunished violence against non-citizens. No wonder tourism is sharply declining.
> Are we better off letting a rapist go free when their victim cannot testify against them because they were deported?
That's not an actual outcome that would occur. Cases can proceed if the victim is unavailable. Do we let a rapist off because their victim had an untimely death? Obviously not.
In the case of a deportee, if we have a sworn statement from them, or can remotely depose them, then their testimony would be included in the trial.
In the real world, cases die all the time because the victim refuses to cooperate with the police.
This is the point of things like immunity, and laws against witness tampering, and why the Mafia spent so much effort ensuring you knew you would die if you took the stand.
You're describing an entirely different situation. Unless you're saying that deporting someone makes them wholly unable to participate in the process which is what I'm precisely disagreeing with. Cooperating can include things like simply filling out an affidavit or participating in remote depositions.
> and why the Mafia spent so much effort ensuring you knew you would die if you took the stand.
Removing someone from the country does not kill them.
People are quibbling without understanding what kind of warrant it was even. They just read “warrant” or are using it in bad faith. We have a lot of bad faith arguers on HN due to it being a public forum. If you check their post history it’s very apparent.
Your point does not engage with the question raised in the comment you're replying to. Would you like to live in a society where criminal justice is secondary to immigration enforcement? One where we deport people with acute conditions without treatment because they are not authorized to live in this country? Dealing with the "root cause" does not require inflicting unnecessary cruelty upon other human beings.
> it has now rendered the fate of all of those people subject to the whims of whomever is in power.
Who is in power? What does our Constitution say? The executive branch is not granted absolute authority over immigration policy and the treatment of humans—citizens or otherwise. That is a Constitutional crisis.
Not every case of reframing in a debate is "whataboutism". Whataboutism is where you bring up unrelated topics. In this case, looking at how we got into a messy situation in the first place is entirely legitimate.
People in this country have rights, regardless of how they entered. You either believe in the constitution and it's application to all citizens and non-citizens or you're a fascist.
I'm not going to quibble on any other bits of misdirection or failure to read other people's posts. Pick your side.
I've heard that accusation so frequently from people who have zero concern about the constitution, let alone even know what it says, that I honestly struggle not to laugh.
I quite obviously reject your framing, and believe that there is a real discussion about how to properly adhere to the constitution in the face of conflicting considerations. But you do you.
There is no discussion to be had when the Trump admin is directly violating people's constitutional rights. If you reject my framing then it's obvious where you fall, you're just not willing to say it loudly yet.
> There is no discussion to be had when the Trump admin is directly violating people's constitutional rights.
And yet here you are, still talking. So long as we are continuing this conversation, do you have any thoughts on how the executive branch should effectively enforce immigration law, which it has an obligation to do, according to the constitution?
No, you made up a hypothetical scenario that was highly sympathetic to your position. I am saying that we should not let edge cases (real or hypothetical) dictate general policy on how we handle immigration law enforcement, and that any outrage we feel at the tragedies that result from such enforcement should be directed toward the people that allowed these situations to develop in the first place.
State court houses are public. They arrested him in public. Why are state courthouses trying to protect illegal aliens? Ones that are being tried for battery no less.
Consider the case of an arrest warrant for a rapist. Can it not be served at a courthouse? What if a judge smuggled them out a private door after being informed of the arrest warrant.
Edit: the charge isn't for refusing to enforce. It's for smuggling someone out in attempt to actively impede their arrest.
You're missing the point - a rapist would have a criminal arrest warrant, which would absolutely be the courthouse's responsibility to enforce. The ICE agents attempted to disrupt a criminal proceeding to enforce a civil immigration warrant not signed by a judge. More on that distinction here: https://www.fletc.gov/ice-administrative-removal-warrants-mp...
The court hallways are considered public property so it's basically a debate on cultural semantics, not a legal one. The federal gov probably has inventive to not deter people showing up at state courts. But the federal gov is also pretty notorious for caring more about their own cases than the potential issues created for other levels of government.
