ICE Goes Looking

For John, BLUF:  Sanctuary Cities are a growing phenomenon across the fruited plain, although mainly on the coasts.  Now the Federal Government is deploying more ICE Agents to metropolitan areas to round up suspected illegal immigrants.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

BOOM:  ICE Throws Down the Gauntlet, Arresting Two Illegal Aliens in a California Courthouse

From PJ Media, by Mr Rick Moran, 20 February 2020.

Here is the lede plus seven:

ICE agents arrested two illegal aliens in a courthouse in Northern California, defying a state law that says they needed a warrant from a judge to do so.

ICE flouted a new state law that requires the warrant before arresting an illegal on courthouse grounds.  After the predictable outcry from courthouse officials and others, ICE calmly gave their rationale.

Los Angeles Times:

ICE said in a statement that California’s law doesn’t supersede federal law and “will not govern the conduct of federal officers acting pursuant to duly enacted laws passed by Congress that provide the authority to make administrative arrests of removable aliens inside the United States.”

“Our officers will not have their hands tied by sanctuary rules when enforcing immigration laws to remove criminal aliens from our communities,” David Jennings, ICE’s field office director in San Francisco, said in the statement.

In other words, ICE is telling critics to go climb a tree.

ICE's actions follow the deployment of Customs and Border Patrol agents to sanctuary cities and states.  The state government of California bitterly criticized that move, but find themselves unable to do anything to prevent it.  The Department of Homeland Security, the agency under which ICE and CBP operate, can send its personnel anywhere they see fit to send them.

There is a definite tug of war between the Federal Government and some of the States and some of the cities.  It represents the lack of consensus across the country.♠  Per haps the November elections will help to resolve these differences.

To move forward, we are going to have to find a compromise with regard to our immigration policy.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  This raises the issue of providing more Federal political power to the more populous states, perhaps by giving them more US Senators.  This would change the balance of power and would reduce most of the States, as a group, to to a minority position.  Ten States are half the population (167,707,819, out of 331,875,705, per the 2010 Census).  The nation would be run by California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan, when they were in agreement.  Picture that on the map.  A change in how we distribute Senators would probably require a new Constitutional Convention, with the danger that many states would drop out at the Convention.  This last Wednesday, The Washington Times had this article:  "Secession fever spikes in five states as conservatives seek to escape blue rule".