Arbitrary Arrests Soar in Los Angeles

By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad

When the Reverend Tanya Lopez complained about the arbitrary arrest of a Spanish-speaking person on her property in the church car park, that "We don't want this on our property," the police retorted with laughter, saying, "The whole country is our property." The police refused to reveal their names and produce their identity cards. It is the escalation of such arrests in churches, at schools, and in car washes—and the aggressive and arrogant ways in which arrests are being conducted by ICE—which have provoked widescale protests all over America. It is the arbitrary and unaccountable way in which the arrests are being made which has also fuelled a climate of tension and fear.

A surreal atmosphere bordering on the absurd has arisen. Unreal is the word which springs to mind!

The recent decision by Trump to send in 4,000 of the National Guard as well as the Marines to Los Angeles is viewed as 'presidential overreach.' It looks like the president is losing control rather than the city of Los Angeles. But judging by the mass media reports in America and abroad you can be forgiven for believing the country is on the verge of civil war and that most demonstrators aren't peacefully protesting but rioting.

According to Trump, America is in the grip of an emergency where it is threatened by invasion from dangerous immigrants waving foreign flags. Bizarre conspiracy theories abound!

The reality is that the decision to send in the National Guard and the marines represents a hysterical overreaction. The police have shot journalists covering the demonstrations with 'non lethal' bullets: rubber bullets, tear gas and pellets. A harmless woman returning home was shot at blank range by a police man. It is those type of reckless actions along with the arrests by ICE of children at school or at graduation ceremonies which have angered so many protesters. A slogan on a placard reads 'ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE WELCOME, ICE ARE NOT!'

Los Angeles is supportive of migrants as 1/3 of the residents are strongly connected to them. A recent judge has declared that the decision by Trump to send in the National Guard and marines is unconstitutional. It violates the 10th amendment. He has forbidden this action. More decisions will be coming on that, perhaps as early as Tuesday the 17^th.

The ignorance of top politicians in regard to the law is staggering. In comparison, even the worst students of politics at colleges excel. The head of Department of Homeland Security doesn't know what Habeas Corpus means, and that it's part of the US Constitution. Kristi Noem is unaware that the right to suspend Habeas Corpus during wartime or an emergency belongs to Congress and not the president. The president does not have the right to suspend or order the arrest of people who disagree with him.

When Trump called for the arrest of the governor of California he was tongue-tied when asked on what legal grounds should the governor be arrested. The notion that an arrested person has the right to due process as well as the rights to know what he is being charged with and the right to legal defence is alien to them.

Noem might as well claim, "Well Habeas Corpus is Latin so it's only relevant to the Romans. Latin is an obsolete language and we've made progress since then."

So what exactly is Habeas Corpus? It has old English roots dating back to the Magna Carta of 1215 where the kings was ordered to sign a legal document which protected barons from being arbitrarily arrested and deprived of their possessions.

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It's worth quoting some of those articles from the Magna Carta:

39. No free man should be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him or send others to do so, except by the awful judgement of his equals, or by the law of the land.

40. To no one will we sell to no one deny or delay right or justice.

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The U.S. Constitution borrowed those principles from English Common Law and deemed those rights 'as the highest safeguard of liberty.' {See pages 251 of Michael Wood's “In Search of England,” 1999, London: Penguin Books; and Noam Chomsky's Chapter 7 of “Who Rules the World?” 2016, London: Penguin Books.}

Of course, kings and presidents seldom keep their word. They also rarely pay their debts. This law has been countlessly violated in America against the homeless, African Americans, Native Americans, and migrants. Some lawyers claim it only applies to American citizens and the state can do what it likes to aliens. But even Americans have been denied due process by ICE agents.

One day, those supporters of ICE raids might one day wake up in one of their detention centres. He might not get due process because he forgot his passport! So even the complacent days of double standards might be numbered.