(Chuck Muth) – Just some quicks notes about the confusion related to the mass deportation operation currently going on around the country.
Arresting criminals is the job of local law enforcement and local governments. Arresting and deporting illegal aliens is the job of ICE and the federal government.
Kinda think of it like this: One truck picks up your garbage; a different one picks up your recyclables. They both pick up trash, but their focus is on two different, specific things.
Similarly, there’s an overlap in deportation operations that is causing the confusion.
Illegal aliens who have entered the United States illegally, by definition, are criminals. So it’s understandable that some believe local law enforcement should be arresting people for the sole crime of entering the country illegally.
Fair enough. But again, that’s the primary role of ICE and the feds.
And here’s the thing: ICE isn’t really asking local law enforcement to actively participate in the round-ups. It simply wants the locals – including local politicians – not to INTERFERE with their work.
So when local law enforcement operations say they’re not going to “enforce” the laws against illegal aliens who haven’t committed additional crimes other than the one they committed by entering the U.S. illegally, that’s OK.
Let Tom Homan and ICE do it.
Now consider another nuance of the situation: What if an illegal alien is subsequently arrested for something else by local law enforcement?
What they should do if they discover that an arrested individual is an illegal alien is notify ICE and hold that person until ICE comes to pick them up out of jail.
And in cases of particularly violent crimes – such as rape and murder – that’s what many, if not most have been doing. But when it came to lesser crimes – burglary, theft, shoplifting, etc. – many local law enforcement operations have chosen NOT to notify ICE – and let them back out.
That all changed yesterday with President Trump signing the Laken Riley Act.
So, while local law enforcement authorities had some discretion on whether or not to hold for ICE illegal aliens who had been caught committing additional crimes, no such discretion is allowed now.
So the bottom line is this: If a local law enforcement agency says it won’t be actively out arresting illegal aliens simply for being illegal aliens, that’s fine…as long as they don’t obstruct ICE’s efforts to do that job.
Just as the garbage man doesn’t obstruct the job of the recyclables man’s job.