What happened
New York Attorney General Letitia James Wednesday launched a “Federal Action Reporting Portal” and encouraged New Yorkers to upload footage of federal agents conducting a large raid in Manhattan on Tuesday so her office could assess “any violations of law.” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said at a press conference Wednesday that ICE had wrongly detained four U.S. citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for “nearly 24 hours” without charges, an act he called “lawless terror.”
Who said what
“No one should be subject to unlawful questioning, detention or intimidation,” James said in a press release. Tuesday’s raid “rattled Manhattan’s Chinatown,” The Guardian said. Nine undocumented immigrants with long “rap sheets” were arrested, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told Fox News Wednesday, and New York City will see an “increase in ICE arrests” because there are “so many criminal illegal” immigrants there.
“In other cities where the federal government has escalated immigration enforcement, local authorities have complained that federal agents have bent the law and abused civilians,” The New York Times said. In San Francisco, which is bracing for an ICE influx, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Wednesday that “state and local authorities may arrest federal agents if they break California law.”
What next?
The “ability of states to arrest federal officers is murky,” the Times said. U.C. Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said if “ICE agents are acting legally, the state can’t prosecute them and hold them liable, even if it dislikes what they’re doing,” but if they “act beyond their legal authority, and violate state law in doing so, they can be prosecuted.”
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