00:00That's a fine point. I recognize the distinguished gentleman from California, Mr. Liu, for five minutes of questioning.
00:06Thank you, Representative Raskin and Senator Durbin, for calling this important bicameral spotlight hearing.
00:12And thank you to the Attorney General from the amazing states you're coming from.
00:17A number of you I have briefed at the vice chair presentations, so I appreciate you doing that.
00:23And I serve with Attorney General Ellison.
00:25So I'm going to ask some questions of Attorney General Ellison, but all of you are welcome to respond.
00:30Last week, I had the honor of meeting with a number of immigrant rights groups, and they were describing horrific incidents where you would have folks wearing masks who we assume were law enforcement agents, maybe, maybe not, who were rounding people up, putting them in their vans without due process, sometimes using excessive force, sometimes engaging in what looked like arrests that did not have probable cause or detentions that didn't have reasonable suspicion, and none of this had any judicial warrants.
00:59So I'm going to ask Attorney General Ellison, so I'm going to ask Attorney General Ellison some questions.
01:02The standard for arrest, for a law enforcement official to arrest a person is probable cause, correct?
01:09Right.
01:10Skin color, race, and ethnicity does not constitute probable cause, correct?
01:16That's absolutely right, and if I may say so, I mean, we've seen Sheriff Joe Arpaio convicted for contempt of court because he continued to do racial profiling when it came to immigration enforcement.
01:32So this is, it's not only statutory law, but there have been a number of cases that find this very point.
01:41Now, law enforcement officials can do what's called detaining a person, something less than an arrest, and the standard for that is reasonable suspicion, correct?
01:51That's right.
01:52Skin color, race, and ethnicity does not constitute a basis for reasonable suspicion, correct?
01:58That's absolutely right.
01:59In fact, that would be mass racial profiling if someone did that, correct?
02:02I would say, yeah, absolutely.
02:04That's clear, clear precedent.
02:06And so what we're seeing are ice raids at Home Depots, parks, and other public places with no judicial warrant.
02:14So essentially, they're just engaging in mass racial profiling.
02:17They're basically just going after people based on their skin color or race or ethnicity.
02:20And the problem is, not only is that mass racial profiling, you also end up detaining U.S. citizens, detaining people who have the right to be here.
02:28And so I urge state officials to look at that and do anything you can to stop that.
02:35Sometimes you have people who are bystanders, and they film this activity.
02:40And I just want to make sure that people who are bystanders can film what ICE agents are doing in the public.
02:45They have a right to do that, correct?
02:47Right.
02:47You cannot obstruct or interrupt, but you can.
02:50You have a First Amendment right to do that.
02:52And it's because some folks filmed activity that we have this article from KTLA, a respected local news organization in Los Angeles.
03:00The title is, Masked Men and U.S. Border Patrol Vests Take Santa Ana Father After Repeatedly Hitting Him.
03:08The first sentence of the story is, In a graphic video that has since gone viral on social media,
03:13about several more masked men wearing U.S. Border Patrol vests or seen violently detaining a father in Santa Ana
03:20before forcing him into the back of an unmarked car on Saturday.
03:24That father also happens to be the father of three U.S. Marines.
03:28And people have the absolute right to film and to send that to the press.
03:34So the Department of Homeland Security has said that there's been an increase on assaults on their agents.
03:41So let me just first say, anyone assaulting a federal agent or any law enforcement officer, that is a crime.
03:47And if you do that, you're going to be prosecuted.
03:49At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security wants their agents to be respected.
03:55They cannot violate their law.
03:56They cannot arrest people without probable cause.
03:59They cannot detain people without reasonable suspicion.
04:02They cannot engage in mass raids without judicial warrants.
04:05They cannot use excessive force.
04:06And they should not act like vigilante folks wearing masks.
04:12So that's what is happening.
04:14And I just want to ask this question to you.
04:17If this video is true, and in fact, the Border Patrol agents just beat up a person without justification,
04:25can state and local authorities go ahead and charge those federal officials if the Trump Department of Justice does not do so?
04:33What I'll say is that nobody's allowed to break the law or assault somebody.
04:40If you are a member of law enforcement and you assault somebody, it will be subject to Fourth Amendment analysis under a case called Graham v.
04:49Mrs. Conner, the law enforcement would have the affirmative defense of reasonableness,
04:57but there is no immunity to assault people by anyone, including law enforcement.
05:03As a matter of fact, everybody is subject to the Fourth Amendment.
05:05There is an affirmative defense for law enforcement, but there is no blanket permission to use violence against somebody,
05:13and certainly none to do it on the basis of racial targeting or profiling or anything like that.
05:20I'm not familiar with the case that you mentioned, but I can tell you that in order to arrest somebody on a nonjudicial,
05:28on a detainer hold or something like that, you know, you have to have objective criteria.
05:37It can't simply be race. It can't be national dress. It can't be language.
05:43It's got to be stuff like, well, you know, they looked you up and there's no match in the immigration database.
05:50There's got to be that there's a removal order for you.
05:55It has to be something like you admit that you enter the country unlawfully.
06:01It has to be, you know, there could be an expired visa, but it cannot be some criteria such as race, national origin, language, stuff like that.
06:11And, of course, you can excessive force is something that the Fourth Amendment does not permit.
