Is a ‘Civil War’ Brewing in Minnesota over Immigration?

There was another immigration enforcement-related incident in Minneapolis on Wednesday, as an ICE officer reportedly shot a Venezuelan national fleeing from a traffic stop in the leg, after the officer was allegedly beaten with a broom stick and/or a snow shovel. Why Minnesota, and not Texas, Florida, or Tennessee, where more than a third of all ICE arrests in the first five months of Trump II took place? Listen to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and you can decide for yourself. It’s important, because the mullahs in Iran are taking their cues from what’s happening.

DHS's Duty to Enforce Immigration LAws - Especially Against Criminal Aliens

Recently, I analyzed a June opinion from DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), the department’s law firm, which is tasked with (among other things) interpreting often vague statutory pronouncements.

After poring through numerous disparate provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), OLC concluded that DHS — and ICE in particular — has a duty to identify, detain, and arrest aliens who came here illegally and to prosecute them civilly (for deportation) or criminally (with eluding inspection).

Respectfully, neither you nor I need OLC’s assistance to understand the requirements section 236(c) of the INA imposes on ICE in arresting and detaining criminal aliens, because the statute is clear on its face.

It states that DHS “shall take into custody” specified criminal aliens when those aliens are “released, without regard to whether the alien is released on parole, supervised release, or probation, and without regard to whether the alien may be arrested or imprisoned again for the same offense”.

In other words, ICE must arrest criminal aliens the moment they are released from local, state, or federal criminal custody, because Congress framed that obligation in no uncertain terms.

And then there’s section 241(a) of the INA. It requires ICE to detain aliens under final orders of removal for 90 days pending deportation, which the statute refers to as the “removal period”.