The Trump administration is trying to criminalize activism like identifying masked immigration agents.
By Akela Lacy, The Intercept
Speaking on Fox News last week, a top official from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency was expanding its dragnet for arrests.
“I think we all know that criminals tend to hang out with criminals,” ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan said. “And so when we start to build a case, we’re going to be going after everyone that’s around them. Because these criminals tend to hang out with like-minded people who also happen to be criminals.”
The pledge to broaden arrests came as an immigration sweep that sowed fear across the Los Angeles area has been met by a growing protest movement to stop the raids and arrests.
In addition to arresting hundreds of immigrants across Southern California, the government is targeting a mounting number of people who are responding to the raids or helping protests. Some of those targeted have provided supplies to protesters or tried to identify ICE agents conducting raids in masks and plain clothes.
The remarks from Sheahan, the ICE official, came three days after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop indiscriminate ICE raids in LA. In the order, Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong condemned the administration’s use of a person’s characteristics — like their appearance, accent, or occupation — as a basis for arrest.
“Roving patrols” operating without reasonable suspicion and denying access to lawyers violated the Fourth and the Fifth Amendments, the judge wrote. “What the federal government would have this Court believe — in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case — is that none of this is actually happening.”
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