Kristi Noem is asked a damning question about violating the Constitution
WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday dismissed a question about ICE agents potentially and routinely violating the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by approaching people on the streets or going to their homes to demand proof of their U.S. citizenship.
During an exchange with reporters at the White House, a reporter asked Noem if she was comfortable with federal immigration agents and officials “violating people’s Fourth Amendment rights by asking for documents without reasonable suspicion.”
“Every action our ICE officers take is in accordance with the law and following the protocols we have used for years,” the DHS secretary said. “They are doing everything correctly.”
The Fourth Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures by the federal government. He read: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and warrants of arrest shall not be issued, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.”
It has long been understood to mean that authorities cannot enter your home without a warrant signed by a judge, cannot force you to answer questions, and cannot attack you based solely on your appearance or the language you speak.
Noem’s claim that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are following standard protocols stands in stark contrast to video footage, photographs and eyewitness accounts of the agents’ violent behavior and their random attacks on people. in cities on a national scale.
Nowhere has this been more obvious than in Minneapolis, where state officials are already suing the federal government over its alleged ICE surge violating the First and Tenth Amendments of the Constitution.
Last week, a masked ICE officer shot and killed an American woman, Renee Good, as she tried to drive away. On Sunday, without authorization from a judge, agents broke down the door from a woman’s house and forced their way in. On Tuesday, more masked ICE agents were captured on film dragging a Minnesota woman from her car and dragging her while yelling that she was an autistic and disabled person trying to get to a doctor’s appointment.
Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) he told News themezone Tuesday that people in his Minneapolis district are living in “complete terror” as thousands of ICE agents swarm the region and indiscriminately attack residents at gas stations, grocery stores, on street corners and in their homes.
They literally go “door to door” to question Latino and East African residents, Omar said, despite having no legal authority to do so.
“You’re supposed to find people who have expulsion orders. So why are you at every door?” the representative asked. “They also have no authority to speak to you and me.”
But if ICE agents are attacking and illegally detaining people, who can stop them?
“No one,” Omar said. “I think we’re in a moment that no one could ever think of and where there are no guardrails. There are no answers.”
via News
During her comments Thursday about the violent behavior of ICE agents, Noem stated that “time and time again in court litigation, we have shown that they have done the right thing.”
However, it is unclear what litigation Noem is referring to. In November, a U.S. appeals court temporarily blocked a federal judge’s call to release hundreds of immigrants detained in the Chicago area.
Separately, when plaintiffs in a use-of-force case involving ICE agents this month sought to have the case dismissed, the judge brought up last week’s fatal shooting in Minneapolis and asked for more time to evaluate ICE agents’ use-of-force tactics against protesters in Chicago.
“It’s not very reassuring to read the news that someone who (at least in some news stories) was described as a legal observer was shot yesterday in Minneapolis,” said U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis. said last week. “So that’s my concern.”
The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday filed its own class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging violations of the Fourth Amendment. It was filed on behalf of three Minnesotans who challenge the administration’s policy of “unlawfully racial profiling, seizing and arresting people without a warrant and probable cause.”
“The government cannot stop and arrest people based on the color of their skin, or arrest people without probable cause,” Kate Huddleston, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Immigrant Rights Project, said in a statement. “These types of police state tactics are contrary to the basic principles of liberty and equality that remain the foundation of our legal system and our country.”
Even as ICE agents clearly stoke fear and violence in Minneapolis, President Donald Trump is signaling that he has no interest in trying to ease tensions. On the contrary, it is now threatening to invoke the Insurrection Law to justify sending military troops to the region to quell the growing protests.
“There are no plans to withdraw from Minnesota,” Noem confirmed Thursday.
When asked if she believes there are cases where ICE agents in the state have gone too far, the DHS secretary said federal immigration agents are “following the law and executing their operations in accordance with their training.”
He ignored a question about whether he now advises all Americans to carry proof of citizenship.