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Notes -
The FBI this morning arrested a Wisconsin state judge on charges of concealing an illegal alien from arrest.
The initial criminal complaint is here. For those of you who prefer to watch TV instead of read, here is attorney general Pam Bondi giving the details on Fox News. The accusation is that upon seeing federal agents waiting outside her courtroom to serve an administrative warrent for the arrest of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz (who is an illegal alien currently being charged with battery), Judge Hannah Dugan escorted Flores-Ruiz out of the courtroom through the jury door so that he could evade arrest.
For all of the "Kash Patel Arrests Judge" headlines I saw this morning, this seems totally fine? It looks like an open and shut case if the facts alleged in the complaint are true. It sounds like there ought to be plenty of witnesses (it literally took place in a courthouse). State-law judges don't have jurisdiction over federal agents executing federal functions. An illegal alien in court for an unrelated violent crime is an incredibly unsympathetic defendant. All of the smarter left-leaning commentators I follow seem to be keeping quiet on this, which seems smart.
As others have gestured at, this is just a rehash of the sanctuary cities arguments from Trump 1. The problem with using state courts/police as a convenient piggyback for immigration enforcement is that is encourages illegal immigrants to never show up at court or co-operate with police ever, either for their own minor offences or as witnesses etc.
I don't think most of the country finds 'we should not use effective tools to enforce our immigration laws because it will encourage illegal immigrants to engage in more criminality' to be a very persuasive argument.
Do you think we should attach immigration enforcement to the census? Why or why not?
Nah. It'd be tremendously ineffective. People would just lie. If we wanted to effectively do immigration enforcement bureaucratically, it should be handled by drivers licensing or E-Verify processing. A point of contact where people need to show up in person, and we're already expecting you to present and verify documents.
But there's no political will to do that, and deporting people who commited minor crimes lets the masses lap up blood without doubling the price of berries at Walmart.
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