OPINION:
New York is a lost cause. A jury in Suffolk County last week redistributed $112 million in state taxpayer wealth to a band of illegal aliens because they were mildly inconvenienced by local cops.
The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office didn’t do anything unusual. Deputies routinely pick up hooligans for various offenses against public order. If U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials notice an illegal alien’s name on the arrestee list, they will dispatch a “detainer” request to the locals.
When that happens, Suffolk will hold the perps for no more than 48 hours before transferring them into the custody of federal agents. This happened about 650 times within four years.
As can be easily imagined, a bunch of left-wing special interest law firms didn’t view this as routine law enforcement; they saw the potential for a colossal windfall. Knowing the federal courthouse in Brooklyn is stacked 2-1 with Democratic appointees, they were confident they would stroll away much wealthier than when they walked in because an illegal alien had to wait.
Otherwise, a case this absurd should have been quickly tossed out. As Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph A. Marutollo argued, the feds maintain exclusive jurisdiction over immigration matters, but that doesn’t mean they can’t cooperate with state and local police, as recognized by federal law.
“The [Immigration and Naturalization Act] authorizes, and the Constitution permits, the brief detentions requested by immigration detainers, because those detentions are supported by a federal probable-cause determination (reflected in a warrant) that the subject is removable from the United States,” he explained to the court.
U.S. District Judge William F. Kuntz II, installed by President Obama, didn’t want to hear it. He insisted that those who break into the country deserve as much due process as possible and ensured that the lefty attorneys wouldn’t be disappointed. He concluded that the Fourth Amendment rights of illegal aliens had been infringed before handing the jury the question of how many zeros to put on the check.
Consider the people Judge Kuntz deemed worthy of this multimillion-dollar payday. Joaquin Orellana Castaneda, a citizen of Guatemala who broke into the United States, was arrested on a drunken-driving charge after an officer saw him running a red light, weaving on the road and driving on a sidewalk.
German Hernandez Argueta told police he was “Jose Amilcar Romero” and admitted to disorderly conduct before a municipal judge. He even acknowledged that taking this plea deal would subject him to returning to his home country.
The named plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit were chosen because they were accused of comparatively minor infractions, but that’s not necessarily the case for the 650 other foreigners who will share what’s left of this bounty after the law firms take their cut. Many of those who will be enriched by last week’s verdict are suspected gang members.
Democrats have no qualms about rewarding lawless behavior. They used nongovernmental organizations funded by Uncle Sam to import millions of dollars from faraway lands in violation of immigration statutes. They issue sanctuary city decrees to thwart ICE.
They will even overlook repeated violent crimes, as long as they are committed by “the undocumented.” Looting the public treasury to compensate trespassers, even the violent ones, represents a new low. Were one to presume rights were violated here, the payout would still be entirely disproportionate to the harm suffered.
The feds need to appeal this decision, and Congress must rein in these out-of-control activists in black robes.
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