Minnesota, Illinois Sue To Get Noem's Ghouls Out Of Their States
And protestors also suing to make them cut the shit.
With the federal government making war on the people of Minnesota, let us check in on Minnesota and Chicago and Illinois’s lawsuits, and that of MN protestors, all trying to kick the swarm of ICE goons off of their streets or make them at least stop the worst of their tactics. Both states want a judge to declare the deployment unconstitutional, and Minnesota and Team Trump are facing off in court today before US District Judge Katherine M. Menendez. Meanwhile, protestors and the ACLU in Minnesota have also been seeking a temporary restraining order barring DHS from violating citizens’ First and Fourth Amendments with their various stunts, and that was before Judge Menendez yesterday.
Minnesota state Attorney General Keith Ellison explained his state’s lawsuit to your boyfriend last night:
You know the tactics: interrogating people on the street about their identities while also hiding their own identities, capturing people’s biometric data without their consent, swapping license plates with unmarked cars to make DHS vehicles harder to identify, warrantless arrests, deploying teargas in residential areas and schools, invading places where immigrants come to seek help, like courthouses, schools and medical facilities, trespassing on private and local government property, and shackling people who dare to film them or speak words at agents carrying out filthy acts on public streets.
We have all seen it. And since the murder of Renee Good six days ago, DHS’s lawless thugs have been going harder than ever, in every way. It’s like Chicago times 10, and fortified with extra ‘roids. Meanwhile Old Man Trump has been simultaneously pleading with the people of Minnesota to love him and screaming about a day of RECKONING and RETRIBUTION.
It wouldn’t seem to get any more unconstitutional than abducting US citizens at gunpoint for refusing to show their papers and/or refusing to even look at people’s papers before abducting them anyway, or shooting a priest in the eye with a pepper ball for praying, or shooting a woman with metal bullets in the face because her partner sassed an agent.
But that was in the Time Before Last September, when certain Supreme Court justices plucked Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo from their shadow docket and disagreed, ruling that DHS agents are now, in fact, legally allowed to stop and detain anyone based on their perceived ethnicity, spoken language, and/or occupation, and/or for doing illegal-immigrant-y things like standing at a bus stop, car wash, or parking in the parking lot of a big-box store. And SCOTUS pulled a weak-ass stunt, letting Trump and DHS keep on with the invadings while the Ninth Circuit takes its time to cook up either a shitass justification or sends them something to reject. Then, in December, a judge ruled against the deployment of the National Guard, and Trump pulled most of them out of LA, Chicago, and Portland.
That left Pandora’s Box of ICE goons, and it screeched wide open! It was mask-off/masks-on time for roving packs of under-trained barely literate unfuckables to do as they pleased anywhere. Bolstered and emboldened, DHS forces led by Greg Bovino descended, and on some places more than others: Chicago for “Operation Midway Blitz,” Charlotte for “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” Nashville for Operation Trump Hates Taylor Swift (we made that up), Louisiana for “Operation Catahoula Crunch,” and now the largest, angriest, most violent surge ever, of 2,000 agents and possibly as many as a thousand, more terrorizing the streets of Minneapolis-St. Paul in “Operation Metro Surge.” (Bovino must be getting tired, he is losing his touch at making up snappy names. “Operation Purple Rein” was right there.)
But it is very not likely that, should it get to them, the Supreme Court will let states kick DHS out. Their goons are different than the National Guard, legally; the Supremacy Clause says that state and local authorities can’t block the feds from carrying out their federal duties, and Article Two gives the federal executive branch the power to enforce federal law.
That doesn’t mean judges are completely helpless, though. As we saw with Judge Ellis in Chicago, they can drag DHS employees like Greg Bovino onto the stand and demand they explain their actions. Or, require agents to do things like wear their body cameras and turn them on, display some kind of identification, or prohibit DHS from using certain tactics they have been shown to repeatedly abuse, like ordering them to not shoot gas, flash-bangs, or rubber bullets at people unless agents are in mortal peril, or do local law enforcement things. Then if agents violate a judge’s orders, they could theoretically be individually charged with contempt, or with perjury if they get caught in a lie.
But that hasn’t happened yet. Greg Bovino fucked around in Chicago, lying over and over about incidents caught on camera, then he fucked on off out of town before he could find out.
Now MAGA’s rage is exploding in a fireball in Minnesota: Trump’s fury at the state for rejecting him every time he’s been on the ballot; at Tim Walz for daring to mouth off to Dear Leader in public; at Democrats there trying to make child care more affordable which allows women to work outside of the home as prostitution whores; at Democrats radicalizing Vance Boelter by existing and forcing him to go on a murder spree. There’s MAGA’s rabid racist hatred of Black people/Somali immigrants/Ilhan Omar; their long-simmering rage at the George Floyd protests and the conviction and imprisonment of Derek Chauvin; their festering resentment of the time Amy Klobuchar made Brett Kavanaugh squirm, reflect on his drinking and confess his fondness for beer.
At a hearing for the case of the protestors in Minnesota yesterday, Politico’s Kyle Cheney posted that the DOJ repeatedly struggled “to articulate why ICE officers can draw guns on drivers who are following them, so long as those drivers are not breaking traffic laws or posing any other articulable threat.”
And Judge Menendez seemed displeased with DHS’s opacity:
“[…] frustrated that she doesn’t have firsthand accounts from police officers who claim protesters suing them were acting in unruly ways,” and “appeared skeptical of Trump administration on a few key points: That ICE can pull over cars that are following them, even if those cars obey all traffic laws; that officers can draw guns on stopped motorists without evidence of a crime. But she also seemed skeptical of effort by protesters to apply an injunction statewide, or that in a post-[Trump v.] CASA world, she could (or needed to) provisionally certify a class at this stage of the case.”
Judge Menendez concluded by saying she would issue a ruling on the protestors’ request for a restraining order on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Illinois and Chicago’s lawsuit, which asks for basically the same thing Minnesota’s does, is waiting for a hearing to be scheduled.
So that is where we are.
Will this corrupt, bloodthirsty group. of assholes on the Supreme Court allow any restraint on DHS’s activities, given the current violent, lawless situation with agents is entirely of their own making to begin with? Even if the Supreme Court allowed it, would DHS accept any restraining or start acting like professionals? Or would agents without gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets be more than happy to use real bullets more often? We all know the answer.
Citizens injured and tortured by ICE goons could also sue civilly, if one can figure out who the assailant was and find and serve them before they get swept off into the Jonathan Ross DHS-shooter protection program. So there is that.
Until then, record, record, record, and stay safe out there.
[CNN]
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The weather in Minneapolis will be in the single digits this weekend. With luck, that'll slow ICE down and give the courts time to rule and locals to organize. We might not see riots this weekend. Maybe.
There's a full bottle of 100 proof whiskey in my liquor cabinet right now.
This really is about the soul and future of America. If a President is allowed an extrajudicial Stasi, this experiment in democracy is over. We can guess that what we are seeing in Minneapolis will be standard operations around voting booths, for example. State run terror will be the norm.