The Ultimate Mission Creep

     Yesterday, a whistleblower released a memo that's been circulating around DHS and ICE since at least May 12 last year that essentially allows ICE to enter peoples' homes without judicial warrants and to do so on "administrative warrants". The butter-fingered corporate MSM that can always be counted on to drop the ball consistently hasten to add that administrative warrants are not unheard of in immigration operations but that's not what they should be concentrating on.

     What this blatantly illegal memo shows is that DHS, following the guidance of the most blatantly and brazenly lawless administration in history, had made a quiet but unmistakable pivot away from the judiciary. Judicial warrants are, of course, signed off by judges and magistrates. And while, yes, administrative warrants have been used relatively sparingly in the past, this memo masquerading as actual case law seems to wave away most of the guidelines of prior administrative orders.

     This essentially takes power away from immigration judges and magistrates and puts it in the hands of politically-appointed bureaucrats and apparatchiks. This signals not a mere loss of confidence in the judiciary but an open or barely-concealed contempt of it. The few guidelines are as follows: ICE officers cannot seek to gain entry into a house before 6 AM or after 10 PM. They need to give the occupants time to comply. And the officers must identify themselves and state their reason for the removal. That's according to the guidelines of the mysterious I-205 form that has somehow supplanted an actual judicial warrant.

     In fact, the memo states in part,

     "Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose.”

     Buried in that anodyne language is a blithe dismissal of the US Constitution, specifically the 4th Amendment in the Bill of Rights which prohibits the government from illegal search and seizure. In fact, the 4th Amendment reads in full,

     "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

     It's the "probable cause" that's the sticking point. The 4th amendment is sneered at by authoritarian right wingers when they move to invade peoples' homes and offices, especially when they happen to be enemies of Donald Trump. But when they themselves are the targets of such procedures, then you'll note how quickly they cling to the 4th amendment.

     However, we saw none of that due process in evidence when two days ago, ChongLy "Scott" Thao, a US citizen, was pulled from his St. Paul home at gunpoint in frigid weather, wearing nothing but boxer shorts and his grandson's blanket over his shoulders. It was literally and figuratively a chilling spectacle. Thao said they broke through his door, screamed at the family, pointed guns at them and didn't even want to see documentation proving he was a citizen.

     He also said they didn't have a warrant, administrative or otherwise. 

     They released him hours later without, of course, an apology or explanation.

     It's unclear how this related to Somali day care fraud or why ICE is even "investigating" it to begin with. 

     I hardly think this was what the Founding Fathers meant when they referred to "probable cause".

     This is the very definition of mission creep and by that, I don't mean a purported investigation into fraud immediately morphing into wholesale arrests and detentions. I'm talking about the perversion and broadening of federal authority so that csrtoonishly vague "guidelines" in a memo have essentially supplanted judicial review and oversight so that bureaucrats with an agenda can take over the duties of trained jurists who have to obey stringent guidelines.

     We're not very far away from where Nazi Germany was in the 30s and 40s when they broke into peoples' homes and arrested them without legal resistance and restraint.

      And at least it can be said that when the Nazis detained people, they actually read their papers.