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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

#601
post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it extremely doubtful that she told the agents he'd be leaving through a particular door or that she had any legal obligation to make sure the man exited in a particular way.

United States Code, Title 8, § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) (2023) > (1)(A) Any person who […] > (iii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation; […] > sha…

A case study on media narrative peddling: https://www.koat.com/article/las-cruces-former-judge-allegat...

Original title: "Former New Mexico judge and wife arrested by ICE". It's as though he wasn't an active judge while harboring an alleged Tren De Aragua gang member.

Protip: believe absolutely nothing you read in mainstream news sources on any even remotely political topic. Read between the lines, sort of like people used to read Pravda in the Soviet Union.

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

#602
A key point here, which the judge brought up with the ICE agents, is that they only had an "administrative warrant".[1] An “ICE warrant” is not a real warrant. It is not reviewed by a judge or any neutral party to determine if it is based on probable cause. "An immigration officer from ICE or CBP may not enter any nonpublic areas—or areas that are not freely accessible to the public and hence carry a higher expectation of privacy—without a valid judicial warrant or consent to enter."[2]

The big distinction is that an administrative warrant does not authorize a search.

[1] https://www.aclunc.org/our-work/know-your-rights/know-your-r...

[2] https://www.nilc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2025-Subpoen...

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

#603
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…

"Dugan took the pair to a side door in the courtroom, directed them down a private hallway and into the public area on the 6th floor"

This is clearly facilitating escape and interfering with law enforcement. "Private" is the key word here.

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

#604
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…

1. It isnt clear ICE agents have any legal authority to demand a judge tell them anything. 2. It is highly likely this is an official act, since it would be taken on behalf of court, so the immigrant can give, eg. testimony in a case. A "private act" here would be the judge lying in order to prevent their deportation because they as a private person wanted to do so. It seems highly unlikely that this is the case.

"when ICE officials left to talk with the chief judge on the same floor, Dugan took the pair to a side door in the courtroom, directed them down a private hallway and into the public area on the 6th floor"

This is a private act and involved a private hallway

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

#605

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…

Nailed it. Keep that stuff away from: * Police interactions, unless you want people refusing to cooperate with police. * Hospitals, unless you want people refusing to seek medical care for communicable diseases. * Courtrooms, unless you want people to skip court or refuse to testify as witnesses. My wife likes watching murder investigation TV shows. Sometimes the homicide detectives will talk to petty criminals like…

[dead]

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

#606
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…

What would have been the right move for Dugan here, according to ICE? Can a judge legally detain a defendant after a pre-trial hearing on the basis of "there are some agents asking about you for unrelated reasons?"

The right move would have been simply to not help Flores-Ruiz evade ICE.

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

#607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of thinking only works if you consider illegal immigrants as people of which a certain side does not and is actively arguing that the bill of rights only applies to citizens. Basically, if you view illegal immigrants as the end of the world, then any deferral of their deportation is equally as bad. There is no room for discussion on this topic, being "illegal" is a cardinal sin and must be punished at all c…

> if you consider illegal immigrants as people Actually, I disagree[0]. The logic works just fine if you recognize that it is impossible to achieve 100% success rate. It is absolutely insane to me that on a website full of engineers people do not consider failure analysis when it comes to laws. Conditioned that you have not determined someone is an illegal immigrant: _______What do you want to happen here? __________…

This is full of flaws.

After due process via courts, deportation is justified. So you need a big "if" before all of that.

ICE is not the police.

There should be no (broad) if-clause to grant rights.

Unknown citizenship is not something you need to check for constantly, as you hinted.

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

#608

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]

Your point does not engage with the question raised in the comment you're replying to. Would you like to live in a society where criminal justice is secondary to immigration enforcement? One where we deport people with acute conditions without treatment because they are not authorized to live in this country? Dealing with the "root cause" does not require inflicting unnecessary cruelty upon other human beings.

> it has now rendered the fate of all of those people subject to the whims of whomever is in power.

Who is in power? What does our Constitution say? The executive branch is not granted absolute authority over immigration policy and the treatment of humans—citizens or otherwise. That is a Constitutional crisis.

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

#609

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-articulate…

Depends on the enforcement methods and the policies. Of course we can defend our border. No, we shouldn't waste billions on some stupid fence that will be climbed or tunneled or knocked over or walked around. I'm absolutely willing to have the discussion about what appropriate policies should be, as long as we can agree that we're talking about real, live humans who are generally either trying to flee from the horrible circumstances they were born into, or trying to make a nicer lives for themselves and their families, and the policies reflect that.

I'm not for open borders. In any case, that's irrelevant to whether I think ICE should be hassling people inside a courthouse for other reasons, which I think is bad policy for everyone.

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