You know. Back when "the rule of law" was a thing.
You know. Back when "the rule of law" was a thing.
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli pulled together an all-star federal taskforce comprising agents from five federal law enforcement agencies—including ICE and the FBI—all working out of an office in Los Angeles. When an illegal alien with a prior deportation is inevitably arrested, upon identification and booking into the local jail, the taskforce seeks a federal criminal warrant—signed by a federal judge—for felony re-entry under 8 USC §1326.
By using available criminal databases to find illegal aliens who were arrested and jailed the day before, the team quickly learns of each new offender. Then, a federal warrant is served on local officials, who obviously won’t buck a federal judge’s warrant. That warrant requires local officials to hand over the illegal criminal alien to ICE.
The critical point is that reentry after having already been deported is a felony, and by getting a federal criminal warrant the government can legally force state and local compliance (which they cannot in a civil matter). That is the rule of law as it stands. It also sets up a dynamic of high-profile "heads I win tails you lose" fights with state & local officials who don't want to comply, providing grist for the base.
https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/sanctuar...
But since those who entered without inspection have almost no way to show when they actually entered, full stop, and ICE doesn't actually have a comprehensive and reliable way of tracking the population that wouldn't run afoul of the Constitution, it's basically a violation that is effectively performative. The people this targets are not eligible for any benefits whatsoever on the federal level for themselves anyway (but still have to pay taxes) and cannot naturalize so there's no carrot and no viable stick. It's a rump piece of legislation.
b) A chart does not trump law, and that chart appears to be for people older than 26, who don't need evidence they signed up for the draft. Or people who entered before 26 and have a reason why they'd be excluded. That chart isn't for evidence needed to submit to the draft, it's a way to show you didn't have to sign up.
I'm not talking about all undocumented immigrants (for instance, instances of foreign born perhaps female or otherwise draft exempt children that are born US citizens but never documented as such and enter the US without documentation), that's why I used illegal rather than undocumented which could be legal presence.
improper entry is a felony if its a repeat offense.
(Also, the purposeful-availment test for personal jurisdiction in copyright cases is built on top of a set of facts that is established by geolocating Cloudflare IPs, and in turn, what was once a vague but at least potentially applicable law now has been turned into something that if merits of a contested case actually gets reached, basically no foreign defendant would be under the court's jurisdiction, because of how CDNs work. Since there's no visa for "responding to lawsuits" and in fact, it doesn't even look like proper service was conducted, meaning that the law is made ultimately on top of default judgments to foreign John Does. I have no idea whether this is a result of incompetence or short-term thinking, but that's where we are. The moment the law is applied correctly it becomes self-nullifying thanks to the facts. Same idea here.)
If you don't have a judge's order to kidnap the person, then it's illegal by default.
But the common language of 'illegal immigrants" is exceedingly vague because it contradicts how the law its drawn up. One is not considered an immigrant legally until one has some sort of status that allows them to adjust their status to permanent residency. Before 1970 this was basically almost everybody. Today it's virtually nobody when they first enter the country. To be an immigrant is by definition to be legally present. The moral panic is actually based on a conflation between two distinct categories of people: those who entered the country without inspection (EWI) and those who are out of status and have yet to cure their status issue. Inspection doesn't literally mean what it means in the dictionary, by the way, it's a legal fiction. A wave-through is considered inspection even though one doesn't get their passport stamped. Parole can in some cases be considered the predicate that leads to inspection (advance parole establishes the inspection element that turns someone with no status into someone eligible for a green card) or it doesn't in other cases, although in those cases one is not legally considered to have been admitted into the country. Confused yet? Don't worry, DHS lawyers get confused over this as well, and even federal judges are frequently confused. Texas v. US was mooted but if it wasn't mooted, the petition actually reversed the terms of art which makes the petition gibberish if it reaches the merit stage.
Either way, whether someone is out of status or have status is not something that can be determined outside of a court and frequently, both administrative appeals and adjudication in actual Article III courts. ICE agents are not lawyers, they're not even technically cops, and they sure as hell can't tell the minutiae of immigration law where every word you think you know the definition of, you actually likely don't. One collateral attack that was commonly seen was that the person was actually a US citizen who never knew they were since depending on when you were born the criteria through which you acquire citizenship even while born overseas can differ dramatically. And by that I mean in the 1970s the criteria went under several changes that requires a whole new inquiry that requires some serious genealogical research to determine. This is a huge pain in the ass even if you know about the law, and ICE agents aren't lawyers and certainly aren't legal historians, but either way as a matter of statutory interpretation and application ICE agents making the determination would go far beyond what they're legally allowed to do. You and me and everyone else who aren't speaking for the government can use shorthands, but ICE agents can't while they're on the job. Who's "illegal" as a matter of law is not something ICE can actually decide, but they operate under presumptions that can't be rebutted since once they ship you out of the country, that's it. You can't get a visa to respond to a lawsuit. It used to be something that one can get parole for, but not anymore. Most no-shows in immigration court happen because of unavailability or because of lack of proper notice given. DHS OIG audits turn up this kind of problem all the time. I can believe that Trump and Miller having no clue about any of this, but the lawyers working for DHS? If they don't know, they're not competent for the position.
Interestingly native born Americans actually don't have a definitive and mandatorily accepted way to prove their citizenship. ICE routinely without evidence treat real documents as fake. You are not required to even have a state ID or driver's license, and neither is dispositive of status, and neither is a social security card. God forbid you were born at home with a midwife since many don't have birth certificates that conform to the more standardized forms of today. Most Americans don't have a passport. If you naturalize, at least the same agency will give you a certificate of citizenship that attest to your status. A green card likewise attests to your legal permanent residency status. But DHS doesn't issue such documents to native-born citizens, and routinely rejects documents issued by other agencies. ICE deports US citizens every year and we only have a limited set of data on how many. If you manage to make it back, you can't even sue ICE. You'd have to sue the municipality that held you for ICE based on what amounts to a hunch, which is not evidence. Voluntarily cooperating with ICE almost inevitably will lead to lawsuits, settlements, and once in a while, the bankruptcy of the city. Thanks to indemnity clauses, local cops are the last to get hit.
And all that is really unnecessary. The country was founded with open borders and while we had a lot of problems, immigration was not viewed as a problem serious enough for the federal government to specifically intervene in in the harshest and most racist way possible for 100 years. If you want both the economic benefits of immigration and also want immigrants to truly be seasonal workers voluntarily, get rid of the system and that will happen. Militarizing the border forced people into choosing which side they want to be on. I'm old enough to remember driving from Vermont to Montreal to hang out with my cousin at McGill for weekend brunches and smoked meats with just a driver's license - not even one issued in Vermont, but California - and the border checkpoint in New Hampshire - the only one in the state - being unstaffed most of the time. The southern border was like that until the 70s. Most Americans and Europeans don't have to contend with visas since visa waiver programs cover the so-called "First world nations" and some well-to-do ex-colonies and so the problem is an abstraction to them. In reality, it's a reality based on abstractions. Either way, since "illegal immigrants" are not a thing as a legally meaningful descriptor, there's no actual answer. Feel free to read this pretty good summation of the specific problems that involve the constitution though, it essentially covers up to Kerry v. Din (2015). https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=19...
What does this mean? If you're a citizen you're legally present. If you're a tourist you're legally present.
Civil matter doesn't mean asking politely (only). Try not paying your mortgage for a while, and see what your bank is doing.