ICE Head Ordered To Appear In Court Over Due Process Violations

It’s safe to say that the Trump administration’s effort to let ICE operate with “absolute immunity” is not going according to plan. ICE’s conduct in Minnesota alone has led to several lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). ICE’s legal woes intensified on Monday after Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz ordered Todd Lyons, the agency’s acting head, to appear before him on Friday to argue why he shouldn’t be held in contempt for denying detainees due process.

According to AP, Schiltz’s order was critical of the way ICE has handled bond hearings for detainees. “This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result,” Schiltz wrote.

Schlitz acknowledged that demanding the head of a federal agency to appear in court is an “extraordinary” measure, “but the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed,” he wrote.

“Respondents have continually assured the Court that they recognize their obligation to comply with Court orders, and that they have taken steps to ensure that those orders will be honored going forward,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, though, the violations continue.”

ICE’s deployment to Minnesota has been nothing short of a disaster. There was widespread outrage earlier this month after ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot U.S. citizen Renee Good. As stories of ICE raiding schools and tear gassing babies spread, protests against ICE intensified both within Minnesota and nationwide. A general strike was held in Minnesota on Friday, where hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest ICE. 

DHS only made things worse for itself on Saturday, after a group of ICE agents were seen pepper-spraying and beating Alex Pretti before shooting him 10 times in the back. Pretti’s crime? Filming ICE and helping a woman they pushed to the ground. Which is textbook domestic terrorism, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. 

It’s gotten so bad that Chris Madel, an attorney representing Ross and running as a Republican in Minnesota’s governor’s race, ended his candidacy and denounced ICE. 

“Operation Metro Surge has expanded far beyond its stated focus on true public safety threat,” Madel said in his message. “United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear. United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong.”

ICE’s actions in Minnesota are already the subject of a federal lawsuit. On Monday, a federal judge heard arguments from Minnesota officials who are seeking a temporary restraining order against DHS to pause immigration enforcement in the state. 

“If this is not stopped right here, right now, I don’t think anybody who is seriously looking at this problem can have much faith in how our republic is going to go in the future,” Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Brian Carter said during the hearing. 

On Sunday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said that the temporary restraining order is needed due to “the unprecedented nature of this surge. It is a novel abuse of the Constitution that we’re looking at right now. No one can remember a time when we’ve seen something like this.”

The general sense I’ve gotten from both reading about and reporting on the legal ramifications of ICE’s conduct in Minnesota is that just about everyone seems to be at a loss for how exactly to rein in any of this. It also doesn’t help that even if a federal judge rules against the Trump administration, they will likely just appeal up to the Supreme Court, which has already given ICE permission to racially profile people. 

DHS and ICE are operating as if the nation’s laws don’t apply to them, and the federal government has been cosigning that assertion. If the legal system cannot or simply refuses to restrain an agency for blatant violations of constitutional rights, it’s basically saying the Constitution doesn’t matter.

I guess when they were saying “Make America Great Again,” they were talking about before the American Revolution. Which honestly tracks for a group of cosplay patriots. 

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