Inmates running the asylum: Fairfax County police officer suspended for cooperating with ICE

We have flourished as a people because of our success in establishing self-government. But all of these results are predicated upon a law-abiding people. If our own country should be given over to violence and crime, it would be necessary to diminish the bounds of our freedom to secure order and self-preservation. ~President Calvin Coolidge, Memorial Day, 1927

What if we just stopped paying taxes?

Really. If our republic has now descended into a land of, by, and for illegal aliens, with law enforcement in major cities now refusing to enforce the laws of this land, then what is the recourse for we the people?

In one of the most perverse punishments meted out in the profession of law enforcement, Fairfax County Police Department suspended one of its officers for handing over an illegal alien to ICE after the individual was involved in a car accident and was caught without a driver’s license.

Over the past few months, we have chronicled at CR the immense danger from illegal alien drivers who often go on to commit worse offenses after driving without a license. Were many of these people handed over to ICE the first time being caught driving without a license, hundreds more lives would be saved every year.

But for the political leadership in the county, public safety must take a back seat to political anarchy.

In one of the most shocking statements I’ve ever seen coming from a lawman, Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. publicly apologized for one of his officers enforcing immigration law:

As a matter of full transparency to our community – our police officer violated our longstanding policy and deprived a person of their freedom, which is unacceptable. We have been informed by ICE that the driver was released after three hours and issued an ankle monitor. When I learned of this event, I directed an immediate internal investigation to look at all factors in this matter to ensure that all are held accountable for this violation. Our county is one of the most diverse counties in the nation and no one should have the perception that FCPD is acting as a civil immigration agent for ICE. This matter damages our reputation and the longstanding policy that I have stated many times that our officers shall not act as immigration agents. The officer involved in this event has been relieved of all law enforcement duties pending the outcome of this investigation. It is my duty to enforce our FCPD – and Fairfax County – policies and hold all accountable for their actions.

The incident evidently occurred Saturday, September 21, when the unnamed officer was responding to a traffic accident. In that same statement, the police chief admits that the officer was simply doing a routine check on the driving records and found an outstanding warrant from ICE because the illegal alien refused to appear in court. Roessler then repeated the dangerous lie that somehow administrative warrants from ICE are illegal and that somehow illegal aliens have a right to remain in the country and not be detained due to their immigration status.

Indeed, it is impossible for ICE to get a criminal warrant for immigration proceedings because they are, by definition, administrative and not criminal. And precisely because they are not criminal is why they are not entitled to due process against deportation. There can be no violation of a right when an illegal alien is detained for an immigration violation. As the Supreme Court said in Turner v. Williams (1904), “Detention or temporary confinement as part of the means necessary to give effect to the exclusion or expulsion was held valid.”

Where is the Justice Department? Why is it not prosecuting these county officials who violate 8 U.S.C. §1324 by shielding and harboring illegal aliens? Also, 8 U.S.C. §1644 unambiguously says that “no State or local government entity may be prohibited, or in any way restricted, from sending to or receiving from” federal immigration officials “information regarding the immigration status” of a foreign national.

This is a growing problem: Radical sanctuaries making immigration enforcement unlawful and making saints out of illegal aliens. Chicago police recently sent out a memo to officers instructing them to leave the scene of an immigration enforcement action rather than cooperate with ICE. They also put out a video lumping in immigration status with gender and race as identities that don’t matter to their officers. Of course, immigration status does matter. Unlike race or gender, which should never affect criminal justice decisions, knowing immigration status matters in the case of criminal aliens because it’s the difference between having them back on the streets and having them out of the country.

The city of New York is now violating both federal law and the Constitution by fining people for using the term “illegal alien” and “discriminating” in housing and employment against them. Federal law bars illegal aliens from seeking employment and bars people from harboring them or encouraging them to remain here illegally. Not to mention the fact that this edict violates the First Amendment rights of Americans.

We are indeed strangers in our own land. How much longer can we continue with this inaction from the federal government, when local governments downright criminalize the most foundational federal power?

While everyone is fighting about foreign influence in our elections, we have the ultimate foreign influence in our major cities, allowing aliens to become super-citizens at the expense of the real citizens. At some point, if the federal government refuses to get more aggressive and actually defend what is an indispensable power, why should any of us pay federal taxes? Then again, something tells me that there will never be any sanctuary for us law-abiding American citizens the way there is for illegal aliens.

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