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| ICE agents in Minneapolis are acting as Trump's personal terrorist army, just like the Nazi Sturmabteilung aka "the Brownshirts" terrorized the political opposition in Germany. |
Although the Supreme Court granted Donald Trump broad Presidential immunity for actions within the Perimeter of his Presiential duties, it is important to remember that they also specified that there was no immunity for unofficial acts. The Take Care clause of the Constitution, as well as the Presidential Oath of Office, both require that the President will see to it that the laws are executed faithfully, and that he will uphold and defend the Constitution. Conservative activists associated with the Trump administration seem to have taken the idea of ICE acting as Trump's personal terrorist army from a passage in the Supreme Court case Egbert v. Boule, 596 US _ (2022). In that decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that courts could not question the actions of Border Patrol agents because their actions were matters of national security and therefore fell within the perimeter of Presidential authority. Donald Trump responded to that notion by effectively turning ICE into his personal terrorist army, composed of poorly trained social outcasts, rejected law enforcement officers and members of right-wing extremist groups. The poor training and erratic behaviors of ICE make them appear to many to be modeled on the Sturmabteilung, Hitler's personal army of thugs and brawlers who helped him to intimidate his political opposition and ultimately win control of the German government.
"The attempt of a state officer to enforce an unconstitutional statute is a proceeding without authority of, and does not affect, the State in its sovereign or governmental capacity, and is an illegal act and the officer is stripped of his official character and is subjected in his person to the consequences of his individual conduct. The State has no power to impart to its officer immunity from responsibilitv to the supreme authority of the United States." Ex parte Young 209 U.S. 123 (1908) Quite simply, the concerns of the state do not grant the President carte blanche to violate the Constitutional rights of citizens at will. While national security is an important issue, the President may not destroy the state from within through the use of brutal and un-Constitutional law enforcement tactics.
" 3. In a suit for damages arising from unconstitutional action, federal executive officials exercising discretion are entitled only to the qualified immunity specified in Scheuer v. Rhodes, [a case specifying that Federal agents had only the same qualified immunity as state level officials and law enforcement officers] subject to those exceptional situations where it is demonstrated that absolute immunity is essential for the conduct of the public business. While federal officials will not be liable for mere mistakes in judgment, whether the mistake is one of fact or one of law, there is no substantial basis for holding that executive officers generally may with impunity discharge their duties in a way that is known to them to violate the Constitution, or in a manner that they should know transgresses a clearly established constitutional rule." Pp. 438 U. S. 504-508. Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478 (1978)
A recent DHS memo demonstrated the un-Constitutional intent of ICE leadership by improperly advising ICE agents that they could violate the 4th Amendment Rights of American citizens at will. This is in spite of past Customs and Border patrol instructional materials, a Congressional Research Service report, and multiple Supreme Court decisions describing the appropriate requirements for warrants and probable cause for ICE and CBP agents.
Although the Supreme Court outlined in Trump v. United States that the President has absolute immunity in all matters pertaining to the perimeter of his Constitutional Duties, and that his motives may not be subject to judicial review or analysis when an action falls within that perimeter, when the President advocates and supports a policy that constitutes a prima facie violation of Constitutional Rights, then motive analysis becomes irrelevant. In failing to uphold and defend the Constitution the President is violating the Take Care clause of the Constitution and his oath of office. Therefore, the President of the United States must either take immediate action to remedy the un-Constitutional practices of rogue Federal Agencies, or assume responsibility as the party responsible for those Constitutional violations. This condition nullifies any notion of Presidential immunity, and makes Trump personally liable for any harms caused by the un-Constitutional policies and tactics of ICE agents.
Epilogue
Part of the reason that Democrats have so much difficulty dealing with Trump is that they shoot down so many arguments before giving them a chance to work. Individuals who attempt to share ideas about how to counter Trump and the conservative movement in the courts are met with replies of "well that won't work because Trump will just..." or "It doesn't matter anyways because the Supreme Court is so corrupt they will just..." There's a line in the movie The Two Jakes where one character says "There's a whore in my town who for the right amount of money will piss on a man's face, but she refuses to shit on his chest. Even she has limits." Being a corrupt judge and being a prostitute are both very similar in that they both involve selling yourself for money. Corruption always has many different levels, and should never be regarded as a simple binary condition. Just because there are two Supreme Court justices who will gladly shit on the chest of the American legal system at every opportunity does not mean that the other conservative justices feel the same. When you choose to view corruption as binary and censor your own arguments you do the corrupt individual a favor, by providing them a reprieve from self-reflections over how corrupt they've become. In order to preserve Democracy, ambition must be made to counter ambition, and part of that means forcing your opponents collaborators to focus on just how far they've fallen, and to wonder whether the next corrupt act is just pissing on the face of the American legal system, or shitting on its chest.
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