Activist judge declares all Massachusetts courthouses ICE-free zones.
June 26, 2019
All courthouses in Massachusetts have become ICE-free zones because a zealous left-wing Obama judge took it upon herself to forbid immigration officers from detaining suspected illegal aliens on judicial soil.
This lawless order is reportedly the first judicial fiat in the United States to block immigration arrests across an entire state, according to The Epoch Times. Massachusetts happens to be the home of state Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph, who was charged earlier this year under federal law for helping an illegal alien evade an ICE agent in her courthouse.
Although police have been arresting suspects in courthouses ever since courthouses were invented –it is a great deal safer for police than raiding a factory or a home— labor lawyer Indira Talwani, now a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, granted a preliminary injunction barring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents “from civilly arresting parties, witnesses, and others attending Massachusetts courthouses on official business while they are going to, attending, or leaving the courthouse.” The order specifies that it “does not limit ICE’s criminal arrests of such individuals or its civil arrests of individuals who are brought to Massachusetts courthouses while in state or federal custody.”
President Barack Hussein Obama nominated Talwani Sept. 24, 2013. The U.S. Senate confirmed Talwani on May 8, 2014.
The injunction dated June 20 came in the case of Ryan v. ICE, a lawsuit brought by two left-wing prosecutors: Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan (D) and Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins (D). Ryan has described herself as a “proven progressive prosecutor.” Rollins released a 65-page memo laying outher vision of “progressive prosecution,” which involves not prosecuting accused criminals.
Ryan and Rollins hit the jackpot when a friendly fellow radical, former AFL-CIO lawyer Indira Talwani, got assigned the case. Ryan, by the way, lauded the judge’s ruling, saying, “The granting of this injunction is a critical step in the right direction for our Commonwealth and it should be a model for our nation.”
President Trump reportedly called into “The Adriana Cohen Show” in Boston in May to blast Ryan and Rollins for their lawsuit.
“These are people that probably don’t mind crime, they don’t mind what’s going on,” Trump said. “You look at MS-13, they say in the world there’s nothing more evil. These are some very, very bad people. To try and protect them, I don’t think so.”
Trump singled out Rollins for criticism after she said “it would be my honor” to be arrested for assisting illegal aliens escape from ICE officials.
“What they’ve done to young girls, what they’ve done to women, what they’ve done to others, is just horrible,” Trump said of MS-13. “So for her to be saying that—she’s got to live with it, she’s got to live with her own conscience.”
Meanwhile, the left-leaning South Asian Bar Association of North America (SABA) speaks of Judge Talwani in glowing terms, describing her as “a tireless advocate on behalf of the underserved” who “understands the value of labor relations.” It adds, “the Chinese Progressive Association awarded her the Workers Justice Award” in 2012.
Ryan and Rollins sued claiming, fancifully, that there exists “a common law privilege against civil arrest in courthouses.” They also argued that allowing ICE to arrest illegals in courthouses makes their jobs more difficult because it discourages illegals from making court appearances.
Talwani bought this nonsense and issued the temporary restraining order preventing the men and women of ICE from doing their jobs in Massachusetts.
This was not the first time the judge’s animus to immigration law enforcement showed.
As the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reported:
Specifically, Law360 reported that on April 25, 2018, Judge Talwani complained to a federal prosecutor that he “should have stopped” plain-clothes ICE officers who were attending sentencing proceedings in the case of a Chinese national who had admitted to visa fraud. Those officers arrested the student as soon as she left the building after being sentenced to a year probation. The judge reportedly stated, in open court, “I am upset at the notion that ICE thinks a courtroom is a place to go and pick up people.” She further opined (again, apparently in open court): “I see no reason for places of redress and justice to become places that people are afraid to show up.”
The authors of the CIS article say this is proof that Talwani is violating judicial ethics.
The judge’s “own statements call into question her impartiality, and suggest that she may have already made up her mind on the issue of ICE courthouse arrests. Simply put, she is against them, as the statements above would appear to indicate.”
Citing an indictment, they note that in November 2017 “the Executive Office of the Massachusetts Trial Court issued guidance to all Massachusetts state judges, clerks, and other courthouse personnel,” which stipulated that “DHS officials may enter a courthouse to perform their official duties.” (The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is ICE’s parent agency.)
Why Talwani, a federal judge, thinks she has authority over state judicial officials is a good question.
Why she thinks the reach of U.S. immigration law ends on the courthouse steps is an even better question.
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