"Trump Officials Are Exploring Mass Arrests of US Mayors!"
Even idle chatter such as this is unnerving. If the Trump
administration attempted such action, in an effort to seat Emperor
Donald Trump on the new American Corporate Empire's Throne, either the
American People would rise up in Revolution, or the Empire would crush
any efforts to resist. Either way, the nation would be in total
disarray. It's hard to conceive of anyone being so arrogant as to
give the finger to the Constitution and the Laws of the Land. But
Donald Trump is doing exactly that. And the cheering fools who went
crazy at Donald Trump's state of his union address, wildly cheering
and slapping their hands every time he suggested another violation of
our democratic institution, seem prepared to follow their "Leader"
into the bowels of Hell.
Carl Jarvis/Dad/Grandpa
On 1/30/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Trump Officials Are Exploring Mass Arrests of US Mayors
> Tuesday, January 30, 2018
> By Ron Fein, Truthout | Op-Ed
>
> (Photo: filo / E+ / Getty Images)
>
> It's 4 am in New York. Federal agents in tactical gear confront the police
> department's mayoral security detail outside Manhattan's Gracie Mansion.
> After a tense standoff, the NYPD stands down and steps aside as the
> bedraggled mayor is removed in handcuffs. Across the nation, carefully
> coordinated pre-dawn raids sweep up the mayors of Boston, Chicago, San
> Francisco and Seattle, and the governor of California. Two hours later,
> President Trump tweets victory.
>
> Paranoid conspiracy thriller? Feverish dystopian fantasy? Hardly. This is a
> plan that the Trump administration is actively considering. On January 16,
> Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen told the Senate Judiciary
> Committee that, at her department's request, federal prosecutors are
> "reviewing what avenues might be available" to arrest and prosecute mayors
> of sanctuary cities for harboring unauthorized immigrants.
>
> Nielsen's testimony wasn't even the first time in January that the
> administration floated the idea of arresting mayors and governors. Two
> weeks
> earlier, Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas
> Homan
> told a Fox News host, "We gotta start charging some of these politicians
> with crimes."
>
> This is dangerous, dangerous talk.
>
> It's important to understand what a sanctuary city (or state) status means.
> While local policies vary and there is no universal definition of the term,
> in sanctuary cities, local police stick to enforcing local and state law,
> not federal immigration law. That frustrates federal authorities, but it's
> not obstruction, let alone nullification. Federal officers can still
> enforce
> federal immigration law. They just have to do it on their own.
>
> The question here is not whether sanctuary policies are wise. The question
> here is whether our constitutional democracy can survive mass roundups of
> mayors and governors for refusing to use local resources to help enforce
> federal immigration.
>
> To be sure, elected officials are not immune from the law. Many have spent
> time in the federal penitentiary for corruption. And elected officials who
> deliberately violate court orders can be subject to criminal contempt of
> court. For example, in the 1960s, Mississippi's governor was charged with
> criminal contempt for defying a court order to desegregate the University
> of
> Mississippi. And former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio was convicted for
> disobeying a court order to stop unconstitutional policing practices.
> (President Trump pardoned him, but that pardon is the subject of ongoing
> and
> potential future litigation.)
>
> It's possible that administration officials are performing elaborate
> theater
> for an audience of one -- the president. Trump himself often says "We're
> looking into it" as a way to dodge an awkward question.
>
> Or perhaps the Department of Justice chuckled at the request for criminal
> prosecution of mayors, but is considering narrower options to punish
> sanctuary cities. There aren't many, partly because most sanctuary policies
> don't even violate any federal statute. More importantly, as the late
> Justice Antonin Scalia explained in 1997, the Constitution prohibits the
> federal government from "commandeering" local law enforcement to enforce
> federal law. Even Congress's power to condition federal funds is limited;
> as
> Chief Justice John Roberts explained in 2012, Congress cannot use its
> spending power to "coerce" a state "to adopt a federal regulatory system as
> its own." That's partly why a federal judge issued a permanent injunction
> against Trump's earlier attempt to withhold federal funds from sanctuary
> cities.
>
> But let's not lose the forest for the trees: The United States government
> is
> contemplating a mass arrest of US mayors and governors for refusing to help
> the president's agenda.
>
> We've seen this before in other countries. Mass purges of dissident local
> officials are moves from Putin's Russia (if not Stalin's) or Erdoğan's
> Turkey. But nothing in our own history has prepared us for this moment.
>
> Is this a red flag for autocracy? Some take comfort in Trump's
> disorganization and distraction. On this theory, breaking the republic is a
> full-time job, not something you squeeze in between golf and live-tweeting
> morning television. But as longtime Putin critic Masha Gessen notes, the
> first rule for survival in an autocracy is to "believe the autocrat. He
> means what he says." And even if Trump himself doesn't know how to achieve
> his goals, the people running the president's immigration enforcement
> policy
> -- Secretary Nielsen, Acting Director Homan and, of course, Attorney
> General
> Jeff Sessions -- know what they are doing, and how to achieve what they and
> the president want.
>
> Maybe it won't happen. Maybe cooler heads will prevail. But we should
> reflect on the chilling fact that President Trump's handpicked appointees
> to
> run immigration enforcement openly discuss prosecuting the mayors of US
> cities. We must prepare for the day when the administration makes good on
> its threat.
>
> We may not get a second chance.
> Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
>
>
>
>
>
> Ron Fein
>
>
> Ron Fein is the legal director of Free Speech For People, a national
> nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that engages in legal advocacy to
> confront the misuse of the US Constitution.
>
>
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> Sessions Vows to Issue Subpoenas in Immigrant-Demonizing Inquest Against
> "Sanctuary Cities"
> By Sam Knight, The District Sentinel | Report
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