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FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

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Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#591

Post by s1artibartfast »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #214
kemayo wrote: post #16

> He accused Dugan of “intentionally misdirecting” federal agents who arrived at the courthouse to detain an immigrant who was set to appear before her in an unrelated proceeding. It sounds like the arrest isn't because of any official act of the judge, but rather over them either not telling the ICE agents where the person was or giving them the wrong information about their location. There are some pretty broad law…

Under any occasion, it was inappropriate to arrest a judge like this. We’re honestly at the point where I’d be comfortable with armed militias defending state and local institutions from federal police. If only to force someone to think twice about something like this. (To be clear, I’m not happy we’re here. But we are.)

The charge seems colorable to me, and I think most people would agree the judge was obstructing justice if you strip out the polarizing nature of ICE detentions.

If you take the charges at face value, Law enforcement was there to perform an arrest and the judge acted outside their official capacity to obstruct.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#592

Post by _mlbt »

alistairSH wrote: post #384
_mlbt wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something very wrong with sending deportation notices or trying to sic immigration enforcement on American citizens. I must have missed that, when did that happen?

It's been all over the news. Here's one incident: https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/17/us/lopez-gomez-citizen-detain...

Thank you, I hadn’t come across this news story yet! Believe it or not, I just double checked and it’s not in my Apple News feed at all.

It sounds like there was a language barrier and he misidentified himself as being in the country illegally. That’s very unfortunate that he was detained for that misunderstanding.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#594

Post by onetimeusename »

kstrauser wrote: post #406

Part of the reason why I support "sanctuary cities" is that it's better for everyone if undocumented immigrants feel safe talking to the police. Imagine someone broke into my car and there was a witness who saw the whole thing. I want them to be OK telling the cops what happened. I want them to be OK reporting crimes in their neighborhood. I want them to be OK testifying about it in court. I want them to be OK callin…

That sounds reasonable but would you also support a strongly enforced border and tighter policies on illegal immigration so this isn't an issue in the first place? I think it becomes hand-wringing and disingenuous when it starts to seem that this isn't really about reasonable policy and it's more about trying to prevent deportations by any means necessary. What's unspoken is that there are deeply held, non-articulated beliefs that open borders policies are a good thing. These views aren't generally popular with the electorate so the rhetoric shifted to subtler issues like what you are describing.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#595

Post by pcthrowaway »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #535
SimbaOnSteroids wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah my mistake, regardless calling people here illegally criminals is disingenuous given the potential offense committed.

Is your argument really "misdemeanors aren't crimes"? Imagine, "someone knowingly or recklessly causes bodily injury to you or with criminal negligence the person causes bodily injury to you by means of a deadly weapon". Would you not consider yourself the victim of a crime in that case? Because that's just third degree assault - a misdemeanor(at least, here in Colorado)

Labeling Theory[1] suggests that referring to people as criminals increases the chance of them committing crimes. When people's existence is referred to as criminal (or when they're referred to as criminals for having committed other crimes, many of which are not dangerous to society or others, such as using drugs) their social and economic prospects are harmed and according to this theory, they then become more likely to engage in other activities which (in addition to violating laws) are actually more detrimental to society.

So I think there's a strong argument that we should be much more conservative with the application of labels like "criminal" to people.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeling_theory#The_%22crimina...

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#596

Post by godelski »

mmanfrin wrote: post #494
Gabriel54 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the purpose of laws if they are willfully ignored? Where do you draw the line? If the police don't care about someone's immigration status, why should they care about who broke into your car?

> What is the purpose of laws if they are willfully ignored? Nearly every liberty we take for granted was at one point against the law or gained through willful lawbreaking. A healthy society should be tolerant of some bending of the rules.

  > A healthy society should be tolerant of some bending of the rules.
No rule can be so well written that it covers all possible exceptions. Programmers of all people should be abundantly aware of this fact. We deal with it every single day. But I do mean fact, it is mathematically rigorous.

So even without a direct expansion of rights and the natural progression of societies to change over time, we have to at minimum recognize that there is a distinction between "what the rule says" and "what the intended rule is". This is like alignment 101.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#597

Post by [deleted] »

Miner49er wrote: post #356
jawiggins wrote: post #291

The AP article [1] has the full complaint linked, the crux of the case seems to be around the judge allowing the defendant to leave through a back entrance ("jury door") when they were aware agents were waiting in the public hallway to make an arrest as they exited. " 29. Multiple witnesses have described their observations after Judge DUGAN returned to her courtroom after directing members of the arrest team to the…

How in the world is this an arrestable offense. Escorting someone out of a room?

[deleted]

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#598

Post by typeofhuman »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #132
typeofhuman wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a judge might just be circumstantial (sensational?). The arrest may be because of the person's personal actions; not their professional actions as a judge.

But I imagine arresting a judge requires an extra level of discretion. At the very least it's going to be a PR problem if it is found to be unwarranted.

> But I imagine arresting a judge requires an extra level of discretion.

This creates an air of a two-tiered justice system. No one is above the law.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#600

Post by cactacea »

lliamander wrote: post #551
cactacea wrote: post #454

ICE has absolutely no business in state courthouses. The federal interest in enforcing immigration law should not be placed above the state's interest in enforcing equal protection under the law. Consider the case of a undocumented rape victim. Do they not deserve justice? Are we better off letting a rapist go free when their victim cannot testify against them because they were deported? I think not and I do not want…

[flagged]

You have completely missed the point of my comment.
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