Joseph Wyatt: ICE unmasked by Judge Goodwin (Opinion)

Last month, after 43 days in lockup, Ramos was ordered released by Goodwin. With evident frustration, the judge unloaded on ICE. He laid bare the fact that ICE has become a rogue agency, one that has transformed from securing our borders into a force that oozes gangland-style intimidation.

Federal judge: ‘ICE is not acting as an agent of the people’

Goodwin excoriated ICE for its routine disregard of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and its Fifth Amendment guarantee of due process. He called out ICE for ignoring the fact that the Supreme Court has guaranteed these rights to all “persons” in the U.S., whether they are citizens or not.

The judge quoted James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, each of whom had pointed out that the government derives its power from “We the people.” Thus, a jailing is an act that should arise from the power of “We the people.” But ICE is not acting as an agent of the people, Goodwin wrote. Instead, ICE is using its raw power in the way that authoritarian regimes do. It is what American patriots fought to get away from in 1776. ICE’s actions aren’t much different from the tactics of hooded Ku Klux Klansmen, Goodwin added.

The judge continued, “When officers can wear a mask, fail to verify their credentials, refuse to disclose their name, arrive in an unmarked vehicle, and neglect to provide justification for their seizure of an individual ... [the Fourth Amendment] has been eviscerated.” Saying that such actions aren’t much different from kidnapping, he continued, “[It] is not law enforcement. It is law without a face. This is a deliberate choice to conduct routine civil immigration enforcement through masked anonymous agents operating without arrest warrants across the interior of the United States. A mask does not stop a bullet. It does not deflect a blow. It does one thing: it hides the face of the officer wearing it ... to eliminate accountability.”

The judge concluded, in part, “An anonymous government is no government at all. It cannot be held accountable. A masked agent freely uses force without justifying his actions, and the public cannot name him to challenge his conduct. A regime of secret policing has no place in our society. The People must be able to identify the Government when it acts to infringe on their liberty.” That said, the judge barred ICE from re-arresting and detaining Mr. Ramos unless justified by a “neutral and detached decision maker.”

Goodwin’s decision made headlines across the nation for a single reason: he had reached across the bench and stripped away the mask, laying bare the hideous face of ICE.

Meanwhile, at the drop of a soundbite, the Trump administration glibly mouths the word “freedom.” But there is a dark emptiness in that word when Americans increasingly are beset with the uneasy feeling that, with the unleashing of ICE, our liberties under the Constitution are little more than restless tides receding to the seas, nothing more than smoke vanishing skyward above the smoldering ashes of the Constitution.