Kamal Ghorui
As several incidents of ICE agents stopping cars amid their ongoing crackdown in Minneapolis have been reported, immigration attorney Brad Bernstein explained what authorities exactly ICE has. “ICE does not have unlimited power. They cannot just pull you out of your car because you refuse to answer questions. They cannot force you to open your door just because they say ‘ICE Open the door’. They need lawful authority,” the attorney explained. Lawful authority means two things, Bernstein explained. One, a judicial warrant signed by a judge. “Not an ICE warrant. Not a Homeland Security paper but a real court warrant,” he explained. And the second is a real emergency situation, including hot pursuit or immediate danger to people around them, he explained, adding that either of the two conditions has to be present.
“Immigration enforcement alone is not an emergency,” the attorney clarified. An individual is allowed to remain silent or speak through the door, or seek a warrant and if it’s not signed by a judge, the individual does not have to open the door.
But if ICE opens the door anyway…
Coming to practical advice as ICE agents have been accused of forcing people to open their car doors, Bernstein said if ICE agents open the door somehow, there is no use of fighting them. “Don’t fight them. Don’t argue with them. And don’t resist. You stay calm, you stay silent and ask for a lawyer. If officers without legal authority enter your car, it’s not what you fight on the street; it’s what we fight in the court. Because street confrontation makes things worse,” the attorney said. After the death of Renee Good, a Minneapolis woman who has now been branded as a domestic terrorist as the administration said she was attempting run over ICE agent Jonathan Ross before Ross opened fire, Minneapolis is in chaos. Anti-ICE protests are going on, and so are the ICE crackdowns. After Renee Good, a Minnesota church is now at the center of the ICE discourse in Minnesota, as the church was disrupted during the Sunday service by anti-ICE protesters.
