Originally Posted by
NE_Pilot
Read the law again. It is quite clear. They can conduct investigations AND they can make arrests with or without a warrant.
I like Judge Nap, but what he says is not law. He said ObamaCare was unconstitutional, yet the Supreme Court upheld it. He had also said the Patriot Act is unconstitutional, yet here we are.
There is how we think the law should be and how it is. Unfortunately, the law gives DHS a wide latitude in how they enforce the law. These laws were passed with overwhelming bipartisan support as well.
I think youre right, in that the law as it is written grants rather sweeping authority to DHS. However, they still need sufficient probable cause to make the arrest. There was no probable cause in this case, as far as I can tell. There also seems to be a tension between the Bill of Rights as they apply to citizens and the powers given to federal LE in the federal code. An excerpt from an NYT article sheds some light here:
"Detaining demonstrators away from federal properties has also raised questions. Former officials at the Department of Homeland Security said it would normally only dispatch agents to assist with local incidents if the state or municipal governments asked for help and deputized that responsibility. In Portland, local leaders have done the opposite.
But the lack of any consent from local officials just means federal agents cannot rely on state and local laws to justify the arrests.
Federal agents can still detain the demonstrators away from federal property if they can assert probable cause that a federal crime was violated, according to Peter Vincent, a former top lawyer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has also sent agents to cities across the United States.
“Homeland security’s authorities are so extraordinarily broad that they can find federal laws that they are authorized to enforce across the spectrum, so long as it has some national security, public safety, human trafficking, criminal street gang conspiracy,” Mr. Vincent said. But civil rights lawyers and demonstrators have questioned whether the department has used that authority to violate protesters’ right to free speech."
Nevertheless, I think there are constitutional issues here that need to be addressed by a court. Your last point is well-made, but I think we all should be suspicious of such broadly written laws and the potential for their abuse.