No, this is a disaster. Hyperbole aside, this is indeed how democracy dies. Eventually this escalates to arresting more senior political enemies. And eventually the arbiter of whoever has the power to make and enforce those arrests ends up resting not with the elected government but in the law enforcement and military apparatus with the physical power to do so.
Once your regime is based on the use of force, you end up beholden to the users of force. Every time. We used to be special. We aren't now.
The allegation is that she obstructed an arrest by changing standard procedure, she wasn't arrested for obstructing search that part was fine.
The ICE agents were legally allowed to wait outside and arrest the man as he stepped out, the judge leading the man out the backdoor after she learned ICE agents were waiting at the front is very hard to defend as anything but obstruction of arrest.
Which sounds awfully novel to me. You really want to tear down the structure of democracy over this kind of nitpicking on "procedure"?
I remain horrified that people I really thought were normal Americans are willing to burn it all down just so they don't have to hear Spanish spoken in their doctor's office.
The GP (or GGP, I forget) was discussing very specific legal technical details surrounding the judge's actions, the nature of the warrant and permissible locations for serving the warrant. I was pretty interested in that discussion - even though I probably generally agree with your macro views on immigration policy. You chose to focus on something completely different, the overall aggregate outcomes of national political policies and jumped immediately to rhetoric like "tear down the structure of democracy".
IMHO, an important part of "the structure of democracy" is the rule of law. Ideally, that means equal, impartial, consistent enforcement of the laws as written. If the circumstances were changed to this being 1962 Alabama and the defendant being the Grand Wizard of the local KKK and the judge snuck him out the back door because RFK had sent FBI agents from Washington to serve a warrant arresting the KKK Grand Wizard - would you think those discussing whether that judge might have technically obstructed justice were equally "tearing down the structure of democracy?"
Calling people who are against illegal immigration "racist" just makes it worse.
A majority of people are fine with legal migration, a supermajority of people think illegal immigrants should get deported. So no, the issue most see isn't that they don't like Spanish, the issue is that they are here illegally.
Sorry, then would a janitor who puts up a slippery floor sign in front of a door and asks someone to use a different door be "obstructing arrest by changing standard procedure."
This is absurd on its face. You don't have the right to arrest a Judge for "obstructing justice" because they let someone use a different door to leave. And you should think 1 million times of the implication to the rule of law before you do such a thing.
ICE are not gods, and I would hope after this, that Americans would start to consider taking away what power they have, because they are abusing it. And it's threatening our democracy.
I think most of the weirdness comes from the fact that entering the country illegally, or remaining in the country illegally can be crimes, but they can also be civil offenses. “Civil” means no jail time, but people still get deported without going to criminal court.
“Civil” also means “doesn’t have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” and “no constitutional right to a public defender.” Immigration law tries to provide limited forms of some of those ideas. There’s a kind of bail system, and people have a right to be represented by attorneys, but no right for those attorneys to be paid by the government. There is somebody referred to as an immigration judge, and they have a federal job, but they aren’t regular federal judges.
It’s possible to appeal an immigration court’s decision to a federal district court to get into the legal system we’re more familiar with.
* https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11536
* https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12158
But about a month ago, the Court did rule people who the government wanted to send to El Salvador have a due process right to challenge that decision in regular federal court as a habeas corpus proceeding ( https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a931_2c83.pdf ). They later issued an order that the people covered by the original ruling cannot be deported based on the Alien Enemy Act until further notice ( https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/041925zr_c18... ).
Oh. Do expand.
