{"id":16236,"date":"2018-01-18T13:46:27","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T18:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=16236"},"modified":"2018-12-28T11:08:46","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T16:08:46","slug":"course-sanctuary-politicians-arrested-prosecuted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2018\/01\/18\/course-sanctuary-politicians-arrested-prosecuted\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Course Sanctuary Politicians Should Be Arrested and Prosecuted"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has never been accused of being afraid to speak his mind.\u00a0 But in an interview<\/a> on January 2, there was one comment above all that stood out: he said<\/a>, \u201cwe gotta\u2019 start charging some of these politicians with crimes.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s right, of course, but judging from some of the over-the-top reaction to this perfectly commonsense statement you might be forgiven for thinking he\u2019d called for the revival of the Salem Witch Trials.<\/p>\n

Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Cerna compared Homan to a rabid animal, saying he<\/a> \u201cseems to be foaming at the mouth.\u201d\u00a0 New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio\u2019s spokesman<\/a> said the comment was \u201cunhinged and misinformed.\u201d Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings<\/a> described it as \u201crattling a saber to make good sound bites,\u201d while California Governor Jerry Brown\u2019s spokesman<\/a> continued with the rabies theme by accusing Homan of \u201cfrothing and fearmongering on Fox News<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not to be outdone by the politicians, the media and the illegal-alien activists ratcheted up the hysteria even further.\u00a0 In The New Yorker<\/em>, Jonathan Blitzer<\/a> headlined an entire piece on Homan with the suggestion that he\u2019d, \u201cEmbrace[d]His New Extremist Image.\u201d\u00a0 Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) President Thomas Saenz<\/a> proclaimed that \u201c[t]otalitarian thugs have no place in our government\u201d and then predictably called for Homan\u2019s resignation or removal from office.\u00a0 And Mother Jones<\/em> magazine trotted out University of San Francisco law professor Bill Hing<\/a> to explain that anyone agreeing with Homan was \u201cshooting from the hip\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, if Hing were correct, there\u2019d be nothing for sanctuary politicians to worry about and therefore no need for all the name-calling, and Homan\u2019s boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, wouldn\u2019t have asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to look into the possibility<\/a> of holding sanctuary politicians criminally responsible for the carnage they help create.\u00a0 Hing might be right that it\u2019s \u201cunprecedented,\u201d but then, hundreds of local governments proudly defying federal law is also pretty unprecedented, at least ever since President Eisenhower sent in the 101st<\/sup> Airborne<\/a> to enforce school desegregation more than 60 years ago.<\/p>\n

The specific federal law Homan mentioned<\/a> for possible criminal prosecution, and has before<\/a>, was \u00a0Title 8 U.S. Code<\/a> Section 1324, entitled \u201cBringing in and harboring certain aliens.\u201d\u00a0 Probably of the most significance to politicians, police and judges of sanctuary jurisdictions is subsection (a)(1)(A)(iii) of that section, which makes it a federal crime for \u201c[a]ny person who \u2026 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\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Under subsection (B), a defendant faces up to five years in federal prison \u201cfor each alien<\/u><\/strong>\u201d [emphasis added]who is the subject of the crime.<\/p>\n

Notable for their absence from the law are any exceptions for state or local officials.\u00a0 The law is sometimes casually referred to as criminalizing alien \u201csmuggling,\u201d<\/a> which might imply it\u2019s limited to organized crime, gangs, cartels, etc., operating in the dark, but its actual language clearly covers much more than that. \u00a0\u00a0Things like, for instance, a mayor trying to bar the door to courthouses<\/a> to keep out ICE, a state legislator allegedly notifying illegal aliens<\/a> that ICE is coming their way, a judge allegedly telling an illegal alien DUI defendant to go out the employee door<\/a> of a courtroom to avoid ICE, or a police chief allegedly releasing illegal aliens<\/a> before ICE could show up, just for starters.\u00a0 Any of these examples is clearly \u201cconceal[ing], harbor[ing]or shield[ing]from detection,\u201d and in all of them it\u2019s obviously with knowledge of the aliens\u2019 illegal status, which is the whole point of the act.<\/p>\n

So should the federal government still hold back from enforcing the law anyway, because that would be the \u201cnice\u201d thing to do?\u00a0\u00a0 Is it some kind of outrage to actually apply the law on the books equally to public officials just as much as to street gangs and drug cartels? The answer to both, of course, is a resounding no.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, it\u2019s a resounding no backed up by what the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Manual already says, in which DOJ issues its policy guidelines to federal prosecutors, including about when it\u2019s appropriate to charge someone with a federal crime.<\/p>\n

Section 9-27.220<\/a> of the Manual is titled \u201cGrounds for Commencing or Declining Prosecution\u201d and it provides, in subsection (A): \u201cThe attorney for the government should commence or recommend federal prosecution if he\/she believes that the person’s conduct constitutes a federal offense, that the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction, and that a substantial federal interest<\/u><\/strong> would be served by the prosecution, unless<\/u><\/strong>, in his\/her judgment, prosecution should be declined because:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The person is subject to effective prosecution in another jurisdiction; or<\/li>\n
  2. There exists an adequate non-criminal alternative to prosecution.\u201d [emphases added]<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    There are very few more \u201csubstantial federal interest[s]\u201d than immigration, which is primarily a federal matter.\u00a0 Sanctuary politicians will not be \u201csubject to effective prosecution in another jurisdiction\u201d because most states do not have immigration crimes and wouldn\u2019t be likely to prosecute their own officials even if they did.\u00a0 And \u201cnon-criminal alternative[s],\u201d such as suing state and local governments in civil court, have already clearly demonstrated they aren\u2019t wholly \u201cadequate\u201d to stop, let alone reverse, the flood of new sanctuary cities, counties and even states, of which there are now more than 500.<\/p>\n

    Federal law provides for the personal accountability of criminal prosecution, and DOJ\u2019s own stated policy already demands it.\u00a0 If you do the crime, expect to do the time.