""There is no structural or blanket barrier to states bringing a criminal prosecution against federal officials," says Harrison Stark, an attorney who works with the University of Wisconsin Law School's State Democracy Research Initiative. "If a state believes that a federal official has violated state criminal law," Stark says, "the state has broad Investigatory Powers to collect evidence, to explore that criminal action, basically in the same way they would against anybody else.""
"After an ICE surge in Chicago last year, state leaders established the Illinois Accountability Commission to collect evidence from citizens about ICE's actions, including the agency's leadership, and to make accountability recommendations. The chair of the commission and former federal judge, Ruben Castillo, says the group is having conversations with local law enforcement to "suggest prosecutions that should be coming as we speak.""
Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti died amid aggressive immigration enforcement, spurring state-level responses and calls for accountability. Illinois created the Illinois Accountability Commission after an ICE surge in Chicago to collect citizen evidence and recommend accountability measures; its chair Ruben Castillo says the commission is urging local law enforcement to consider prosecutions. Prosecutors in Philadelphia and California are weighing criminal charges against federal agents. Legal experts contend that federal agents do not enjoy blanket immunity from state criminal prosecution, and states retain investigatory powers and civil causes of action, though the Trump administration has sued to block Illinois' law.
#immigration-enforcement #state-accountability #federal-state-conflict #civil-and-criminal-litigation
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]