The wimpy attorneys at OPLA are either secretly sympathetic to illegal aliens, indolent, or just incompetent. The facts in the above article were easily defensible with valid and precedent legal rulings supporting the facts of the stop of illegal alien Zenon Cruz.
The government would have easily won the legal arguments, the attorneys at OPLA just needed to do some additional work, which they appeared to be unable or unwilling to do. I warned that Thomas Homan, Acting Director of ICE, needed to end this sabotage. Unfortunately, Homan did not, and now the Treason Bar and civil rights groups are stepping into the breach in immigration enforcement that Homan did not fill.
A prominent civil rights group has taken legal action against federal immigration authorities, in the case of what they say was an unlawful, warrantless arrest at an auto repair shop in South Los Angeles that ultimately led to a deportation order.As usual for the Treason Bar and the ACLU, their claims are notable for what they don't say, as much as the lies they do tell. First, we get none of the back story. It appears the KCAL reporter was just a transcriptionist for the ACLU and the Treason Bar shyster Stacey Tolchin. The ACLU and Tolchin press the claim that ICE showed up at a random place and arrested everyone there for no reason what so ever.The Southern California office of the American Civil Liberties Union, working with the Law Offices of Stacey Tolchin, announced Thursday they had filed a motion to stop the deportation of auto mechanic Juan Hernandez, whom they say was unlawfully arrested by officers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
[Claiming ICE Detained Him Because Of ‘Latino Appearance,’ ACLU Files Motion To Prevent Deportation Of Mechanic, KCAL, December 14, 2017]
According to the filing, on Sept. 25, six ICE agents entered View Park Automotive in South L.A., where Hernandez worked, with guns drawn and without identifying themselves.That is a lie. While I was not there, the surveillance video clearly shows that ICE Deportation Officers fully identified by their badges and raid vests with "Police" clearly visible and at least one agent appears to be wearing a windbreaker with "Police" clearly emblazoned on it. If it is the standard ICE windbreaker, then it also says ICE. When in uniform, most law enforcement officers don't "identify" themselves as their identity as law enforcement officers is clear from their uniform. Similarly, when wearing raid vests, visible badges, and marked windbreakers, the case is the same. Their physical appearance identifies them as law enforcement officers.
Then they complain that all the people at the garage were handcuffed and "arrested," which they were not, they were detained, then perhaps, later arrested.
Security video from inside and outside the shop shows, as the ACLU motion claims, officers with vests labeled “police” ordering Hernandez, three other mechanics, a customer and a vendor who had just dropped off parts “to freeze and put their hands up.Now we know why the reporter did not give us the background of the story. This appears to be the execution of a search or arrest warrant. Something that the ACLU and the reporter did not want you to know, as when executing a search or arrest warrant on a private space, even one open to the public, law enforcement officers routinely detain and handcuff all persons present, or at a minimum identify all persons present, especially those who, for example, work at the place where the arrest or search warrant will be executed.“Without informing any of the men who they were or why they were arresting them, the agents proceeded to handcuff all of the employees,” the motion reads. “The only thing the officers knew about Mr. Hernandez when they decided to detain him was his place of business and his Latino appearance.”
And it is completely legal. In Michigan v. Summers and Muehler v. Mena, the Supreme Court stated clearly that when executing a search warrant, law enforcement officers have the authority to detain all the persons present at the site of the search warrant, including handcuffing those persons. So, detaining and handcuffing Hernandez, then identifying him, was completely legal. Obviously in the process of identifying Hernandez the ICE officers discovered he was an illegal alien. Therefore the detention and subsequent arrest was legal.
This is so obvious that one is surprised that the ACLU would challenge such well established precedent. One can only conclude that they suspect kritarchs will support them, at least at the lower court level in California, but they certainly can't expect the Trump Supreme Court to acquiesce to this absurdity. Likely though, they suspect that they can successfully intimidate the saboteurs at OPLA will drop the deportation case.
We shall see if this happens. I hope Thomas Homan is watching this case closely.