Thread by @McAdooGordon

DHS needs to circulate a memo to all state governments to make all their state officials & judges aware that ICE officers DO NOT need a “judicial” warrant to arrest immigrants in a public place. An immigration warrant issued by ICE is all that is required under federal law.

If state officials interfere with arrests based on those warrants, they are unlawfully interfering with federally agents under 18 USC 111. If they do so with “physical contact” with the agent, it’s a felony.

(These non-judicial warrants don’t permit entry into a home.)

So, for example, in the Brad Lander situation, he’s wrong that the agents have to show a judicial warrant to make the arrest; & holding on to the arrestee to prevent the agents from making it is a federal offense, at least a misdemeanor.

And possibly a felony if he made physical contact with the agents in the process and that contact was more than “incidental” or was “forcible.”

You can see in the video toward the end of the scuffle he brings his right hand up & makes contact w/an officer in what looks like an effort to break the officer’s hold on him/the arrestee. Someone yells “Assault!” at that instant. Unclear if it’s the touched officer or another.

And then the agents pivot to arresting him also, not just trying to remove him off of the arrestee. That is why they charged him with both interfering and assault.

See that video here:

Even tho the U.S. Attorney dropped those charges, according to NY Gov Hochul, that does not mean he won’t be re-charged or instead indicted, as Congresswoman McIver was. DOJ has not said they won’t be charging, only that they are investigating it further.

That means they will be scrutinizing all available video in practical terms before making a final decision. They can re-charge a misdemeanor anytime up to a year, and that felony up to five years from now, so they have time to figure out what they want to do.

Whereas, if they proceed immediately on the initial charges based on the complaint, the case is pending in the court and that comes with deadlines.

Based on the video, I don’t see how the behavior can be ignored altogether. It’s definitely interfering/opposing/impeding, even if you want to say that the “assault,” - the touching - is incidental/not forcible.

Comparing this situation to the other recent ones, it looks like worse conduct to me than Padilla (who also wasn’t interfering with an arrest), but not as bad as McIver, who more affirmatively goes after officers.

It probably warrants a charge. It’ll be interesting to see.

Based on our discussion last night about Padilla & McIver, & the J6 cases, what do you guys think, @shipwreckedcrew & @KingMakerFT?

Will the NY U.S. Attorney charge this in your view? Should it be charged? Thoughts?